


Burst Fractures

by 30PacketsofKetchup



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst and Fluff, Arkham Asylum, Bickering, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Revenge Plots, Scriddler, Sexual Content, Spinal Injury, also harley quinn is the best friend anyone could ever have, but not graphic sexual content, i know you're thirsty for that sweet sweet scrids, jonathan will be there from chapter three on in case you were wondering where he is, more content and character tags to be added if need be, past riddlebird, villains in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-02 08:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/30PacketsofKetchup/pseuds/30PacketsofKetchup
Summary: In Gotham, the Riddler is a respected and feared criminal mastermind. But when a confrontation with the Bat lands him in the Arkham Asylum infirmary with a shattered spine, he quickly learns that his injuries are not his only problems. His lover has sold him out and his network of underlings have abandoned him. The Riddler is a broken man, and in brokenness there is desperation.A non-linear look at the life and loves of Edward Nygma





	1. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was dying, dying on top of what he now realized was a very ugly carpet, surrounded by broken glass and gaudy earrings. This was the end of the Riddler, then? Not how he had imagined his own demise at all. He was dismayed knowing that he couldn’t deliver the speech he had written and memorized for this very occasion. His last riddle. Edward felt cheated. His death didn’t even have an audience, except for Batman of course. And that coward Fields, but he was probably long gone by now.

(Gotham City Jewelers. Four months ago)

Bound by the thick vinyl cord, hanging upside down over the ledge like some undignified cocoon, Edward Nygma watched as the Batman took down his cohorts one by one. The hired thugs were panicking. The group had just blown in from somewhere out west, they were new to Gotham, and had never gone up against the Bat before. Edward had warned them, but they hadn’t believed him. The new guys never believed. One of them was thrown back against a tall display case, sending jewels and pearls and gold flying across the floor of the high-end jewelry shop. Edward struggled in his binds, his black tie flopping in his face, as Batman descended on the last standing thug. Fields, his name was. He was the only one from the group that Edward half-liked. The man scrambled away, tossing tables and shelves and anything else he could get his hands around to maintain the distance between himself and the caped vigilante. 

Fields darted narrowly out of Batman’s grasp, ducking behind the counter. Edward could do nothing but witness as Batman whipped a Batarang at the man, missing. He threw a second one, and at that moment Fields shielded himself using a metal tabletop display. Whatever it was made of, it was strong enough to resist the sharp metal of the Batarang, sending it ricocheting backward. Batman’s head turned sharply to follow it in the air. 

Edward’s instincts told him to leap out of the way, but being upside down and suspended from a balcony, he could do no such thing. The Batarang zipped above him, grazing the toes of his shoes, and going right through the cord that had been holding him. The binds came undone and suddenly nothing was touching him but air.

“NO!” Batman screamed, rushing across the showroom in a vain attempt to catch the Riddler before he made contact with the floor. He was too late.

Edward heard the sound of the glass counter smashing before he felt it. He had fallen right through it. His body lie twisted like a ragdoll in the rubble. Immediately the pain came. It was like blazing white fire coursing through every cell of his body. His spinal column had exploded into nothingness. His legs lacked bones. His mouth was filled with the copper taste of his own blood. He tried to spit it out, but lacked the lung capacity. Instead he turned his head to the side, allowing the blood to ooze hotly from his lips. His vision was dark, his eyes making out nothing but moving shapes in the haze. He heard Batman’s deep growling voice, saying something. His name? 

“Ed. Don’t move.”

Don’t tell me what to do, Batman! he would say, if he could speak. There was no air in his lungs, only dust.

He was dying, dying on top of what he now realized was a very ugly carpet, surrounded by broken glass and gaudy earrings. This was the end of the Riddler, then? Not how he had imagined his own demise at all. He was dismayed knowing that he couldn’t deliver the speech he had written and memorized for this very occasion. His last riddle. Edward felt cheated. His death didn’t even have an audience, except for Batman of course. And that coward Fields, but he was probably long gone by now. 

Though it was agonizing to move, he slid his hand weakly to the inner pocket of his jacket, fingers wrapping loosely around the small velvet box that hid safely inside. It was still there. He lamented the fact that its contents might never reach their intended recipient. He at least deserved a proper explanation for Ed’s death. 

Edward tried to speak again, but Batman had turned his back, greeting someone out of view.

The EMTs were at Edward’s sides, checking him over. Telling him soft, comforting words he couldn’t make out.

He was in an ambulance, lights dazzling his eyes.

He was on a stretcher, being whisked down a hallway that he somehow recognized. Doctors and nurses moved hurriedly in and out of his field of vision. 

There were needles in his arms. Drugs in his veins. A mask on his face. A tube in his throat. 

 

Edward woke up two days later, handcuffed to his hospital bed. He had to laugh at the precaution. As if he could even attempt escape in this state… 

His injuries were extensive. A broken wrist, some head trauma, lacerations all over his body from the shattered glass- many of which required stitches. His entire body was one large bruise. Worst of all were the multiple burst fractures in his spine. He had been given emergency surgery to repair the fractures. The neurological damage was thought to be minimal but permanent, although they would have to see. 

“Will I ever dance again, Doc?” Edward joked bitterly.

“In due time, Mr. Nygma,” the doctor answered. “But you have a long road ahead of you.”

 

???

 

Edward spent the first six weeks after his fall in the Arkham Asylum infirmary. 

“Can’t I recover in a real hospital?” Edward asked his physical therapist. His arms shook as he held onto the bar beside him, shuffling forward with great effort. 

“This is a real hospital,” she answered.

He sighed. “A regular hospital?”

She tutted, hands loose around Ed’s hips. ‘Now, now, Edward. You know why that’s not possible. You’re a dangerous career criminal.”

Edward looked down at his own wobbling legs. He was wearing socks with rubber grips on the bottom. They reminded him of the ones his geriatric grandmother had worn. “Dangerous,” he repeated softly. Ha! How he wished that were still true.

-

Two weeks into his stay, he got a new neighbor in the infirmary. At first, he didn’t recognize the blonde. She was an attractive woman, which Edward could see despite the swollen black eye she was sporting. Her arm was held close to her chest in a sling. She was sobbing, softly, when the orderlies led her in and helped her into the hospital bed beside Ed’s. He tried not to make it obvious that he was observing her while she was in such a vulnerable state. He would have hated it for someone to see him in that way. 

Once her weeping had subsided, she spoke. “Hi there, Rids.”

He recognized her voice instantly. “Harley Quinn!”

“Who else would I be?” she asked. There was a tiny hint of playfulness there, despite the lingering sadness in her throat.

Edward laughed a little. It sent a sharp twinge down his spine. “I never knew you were a blonde,” he remarked. In all their previous interactions, she had always been hidden under her make-up and her black and red jester’s costume. 

“I’m not, really,” she whispered, a mischievous smile spreading across her face.

He laughed again, this time with less force. It still made his back hurt. “I hope no one sees us talking,” he said after a moment. “I wouldn’t want your Puddin’ coming after me while I’m bedridden like this. He does hate me so…” 

“He ain’t my Puddin’ anymore,” Harley said sharply. “Not after this.” She gestured to her broken arm. 

“Joker did this to you?” Ed asked, unable to hide the anger he felt. He had no patience for abusive men. 

She sighed. “It’s not the worst he’s ever done to me, but it’s definitely the last. I’m through with him… For good this time!” 

He wondered, darkly, how many times she’d proclaimed that same sentiment before.

“Batsy did a number on you, huh?” she asked, turning the conversation to his injuries. 

The question made Edward stiffen. “I’d rather not talk about it.” 

Harley ignored him. “Ya must be furious with Penguin, then, I bet.” 

“Penguin?” Turning his head so quickly sent a shooting pain through Edward’s skull. “What about Penguin?” He had been hoping someone would be able to tell him something about Oswald. Ed had been laid up in this bed for fifteen days now and hadn’t heard from him once. He had assumed it was because Arkham staff wasn’t allowing him to visit. 

“Oh my god, you don’t know, do you?” Harley’s voice was gentler suddenly. 

“Know what?” Ed implored. His chest was so tight. 

She looked at her lap, clearly planning the best words for what she was going to say. “Penguin was the informant who told Batman where you were gonna be that night. It’s his fault you’re in here.” 

“No.” 

No. No. No. 

That couldn’t possibly be true. 

“I’m sorry, Ed.” 

No… 

-

Harley was gone after just a couple of days. Back to her usual cell, presumably. And after six weeks in the infirmary, Ed was moved out as well. This seemed entirely too early to him, but beds in the infirmary were scarce and the newly-injured were always coming in. As he was being led out, an inmate was being wheeled in with a broken broom handle jutting out of somewhere. Ed was at least glad he didn’t have to spend the night next to that. 

The fact that he was incredibly vulnerable to attack was not lost on Edward. He could only get around with the help of a plastic walker (a metal one was out of the question, apparently- too easy to use as a weapon) and even using that he was incredibly slow moving. To a man with as little patience as Edward had, his own pace in those days was endlessly frustrating. 

He was physically defenseless and, even more worrying; his outside connections were a mystery to him. Oswald had betrayed him, for reasons he couldn’t discern at present. And Edward’s people had been Oswald’s people. Was he still protected, then? Or was someone lurking around the next corner, planning to kill him? He didn’t know why Oswald would want him dead. But it seemed he didn’t know anything about his partner at all, did he?

Edward was grateful to be given a cell by himself. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about being murdered in his sleep. And this way, no one would be there to witness as he wept disgustingly into his pillow every night. 

 

???

 

“Nygma, you have a visitor.”

His heart leapt and sank at precisely the same time, somehow. He didn’t want to see Oswald, could barely stand to think about him, but true to form Edward was aching for answers. He needed to understand. The guard yanked him along, nearly tripping him over his own walker. She was new at the Asylum, and he hadn’t yet had time to use his silver tongue against her.

“Watch it!” he yelped, as his back twisted uncomfortably.

“Hurry up,” she warned. She had no regard at all for Ed’s injuries. Perhaps this one wouldn’t have been susceptible to his manipulations anyway. 

They entered a small room, holding only a metal table –bolted to the floor- and two plastic chairs. In the farthest chair sat a small, fat man. Ed made sure to let his eyes wander everywhere in the room but on him. The guard released her grasp on Ed’s upper arm and watched as he lowered himself painfully into the chair opposite from Oswald.

“You’ve got ten minutes.” She closed the door behind her. 

Edward was now alone with his partner. Ex-partner. Whatever he was.

He still refused to meet his gaze, choosing instead to focus on picking some lint from the front of his striped Arkham jumpsuit. 

“Eddie,” Oswald said. “Darling, you look terrible.”

“I looked worse six weeks ago,” Ed answered. He had tried to sound measured, but his tone was gruff.

Oswald fidgeted with his gloved flippers on top of the table. “Yes, well, I tried to visit sooner. But they wouldn’t let me see you in the infirmary. I’m… not allowed that far inside the building.” So Ed had been right about that part, at least. 

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t look at Oswald’s face.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Oswald said. 

Ed barked out a laugh.

“This isn’t funny, Edward.”

“Ooh, ‘Edward,’” Ed mocked. “I must be in big trouble.”

“Are you on a new medication?” Oswald asked. “You aren’t acting like yourself.”

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Oh, he certainly was good at playing dumb, when he needed to. This was how he’d risen to power in Gotham. He was a master manipulator, better than Edward even. Not that he’d ever admit someone was better than him at something. Edward would have probably fallen for this act, if he didn’t already know the truth. And it was the truth; he had spent a good deal of time asking around to make sure. It seemed everyone knew. 

“Riddle me this,” Ed said, finally meeting eyes with Oswald. “I am the bane of the farmer and of the city man, and I never come alone, with razor teeth and tails like worms, we’ll eat your house and home.“

“A riddle, Eddie? Really?”

Ed merely stared, and so Oswald shrugged and thought for a moment. Realization dawned on his face. “The answer is a… a rat?”

“A rat,” Ed repeated with a heavy nod.

Oswald lowered his face, long nose nearly touching the table. “So you’ve heard.”

“I found out weeks ago,” he said, allowing his anger to bubble over now. “Everyone is talking about it. How the Penguin turned his lover over to the Bat. It’s the most disgraceful thing; everywhere I go there are whispers. He shattered my back, Oswald. I had to have surgery! …I’ve got permanent nerve damage.” 

“I swear, Eddie, baby, I had no idea.” 

Edward glowered at the pet name. 

“I didn’t! You never told me you were doing work with Fields and his boys.”

“I told you, Oswald. I told you multiple times. But I guess you weren’t listening, were you? You were too wrapped up in your own business. As always, the Iceberg Lounge comes first. ” 

Any casual observer would recognize that this was one of those arguments couples have that just keeps coming up and up and up and is never resolved. 

“You can’t always be the center of attention, you know,” Oswald said. There was a marked exasperation in his words. This verbal dance was too familiar. 

“Why can’t I be?” Ed retorted, feeling heat wash over his face, embarrassed with himself for falling into the trap. But he couldn’t stop himself. “I deserve to be.”

It was Oswald’s turn to laugh. “You don’t honestly believe that, do you?”

Ed said, counting off on his fingers, “I have a genius intellect, I’m handsome, I’m talented, and I’m-“

“Modest,” Oswald spat with sarcasm.

Ed felt his temperature rising ever still. “I could be with any man or woman in Gotham, if I so chose!” he shouted it, louder than he intended.

“Then be with them!” Oswald yelled even more loudly, rising to his feet.

The guard was at the door, striding towards them. “I said ten minutes, it’s been twelve.”

“I was just leaving,” Oswald grumbled at her. He placed his hat on his head and began to hobble off on his cane.

Ed could see that Oswald’s limp was more pronounced than usual. He wondered, briefly, if he was keeping up with his pain medications. No, not my problem anymore, he thought bitterly.

The guard was leading Edward in the opposite direction down the corridor. He watched Oswald over his shoulder. 

“Ozzie,” he said weakly, not knowing why. 

Oswald didn’t turn back. 

Edward had the awful sensation that he had just lost a game he didn’t even know he’d been playing. How he so hated losing. 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	2. Edward and Harley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward quite literally owes this woman his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Trigger Warning! for self-harm and a suicide attempt in this chapter-
> 
> Also I just want to assure you that this is not Harley/Ed shipping. Harley and Edward's affections are 100% platonic.  
> They are best BFFs forever.

(Present day)

“Whatcha doin’? Designing a new death trap?” Harley’s voice is suddenly in Edward’s ear. It’s cheerful, sing-song, the same quality one would employ when asking about a child’s drawing. 

He smooths his fingers over the blueprints in front of him, and doesn’t look up. “Mmhmm.”

“I made grilled cheese,” Harley says, waving the sandwich beside Ed’s face.

“Hmm,” he responds, eyes still not leaving his work. The small bedroom is dark save for the dim lamp on the desk. How long ago did the sun go down? “I’ll have some later.”

“But Eddie… You haven’t been eatin’.”

He glances up but doesn’t look back at her. He sharpens his pencil with a small handheld sharpener. “I have too been eating.”

“Tell me, when’s the last time you had somethin’ to eat?” Her tone is almost motherly.

Ed straightens in his chair. A sharp pain traverses down the center of his back, and he hisses quietly through his teeth. He isn’t sure how long he’s been hunched over his desk. “This morning,” he answers, after taking a moment to think. “We had omelettes.”

“Eddie,” Harley says slowly. “That was yesterday.”

He laughs nervously. “No, no, that was…” his voice trails off. Was it really yesterday? Had he forgotten to sleep again? “What time is it?”

“6:30 at night. You’ve been holed up in here all day. I offered you food twice already but you kept saying ‘later, later.’” She holds the plate in front of his face. “Please eat, I’m worried about you.”

His stomach growls, a pang of hunger racking his body as if just now remembering its own existence. He sighs, taking the plate from her hands. 

“Eat,” she says firmly. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, masking genuine appreciation with sarcasm. 

She turns on her heels to leave Edward’s room. Before she closes the door she adds, over her shoulder, “And take a shower! You stink!” 

Once he’s alone, Ed heaves out a tired breath and picks up the grilled cheese. His stomach growls more insistently. “I’m eating, I’m eating,” he whispers to himself.

-

Edward spends much longer in the shower than he intends to. Mostly he just zones out, letting the hot water pour over his aching back. His recovery has been going more smoothly than expected, but having his neck craned over a desk for two days straight cannot have been good for him. He lathers his body with soap, for the third time in a row, fingers worrying over the surgery scars. When he exits the shower, toweling himself dry and slipping into some clean pajamas, his eyes avoid the mirror. Normally, Edward Nygma can’t resist his own reflection, but these past few months… He pushes the thought away as quickly as he can.

He leaves the bathroom, still toweling his hair, and finds Harley seated on the couch. She’s engrossed in whatever nonsense television show has a hold of her attention this week. She has a fleece comforter wrapped around her, up to her chin. It’s early December, and the nights are getting colder every day. Ed feels the chill of the hardwood floor beneath his bare feet. He rubs the towel harder into his hair, willing it to dry more quickly. 

Harley beams up at him. She’s always so chipper, it’s almost annoying. “Feel better?” 

He shrugs.

“Wanna come sit with me? We can watch the Discovery Channel.” She pats the cushion beside her. 

“I can’t,” Edward answers. “I have too much work to do.”

She pouts. “Work later. I didn’t invite you to be my roommate just so I could sit alone on the sofa every night.”

He shakes his head. “No, no,” he says quickly, breathing hard through his nose. “I’ve got to finish these designs. The last ones were flawed. They just didn’t… work right. Nothing seems to work right.”

“All the more reason for a break,” Harley offers. 

“No,” he says again. “I have to work harder, that’s all. I’ve got to make everything perfect. I cannot allow Batman to embarrass me this time.”

He starts to head to his room, but Harley hops off the couch and pulls him into a hug, pinning his arms to his sides. “You need to rest, Eddie,” she says into the front of his shirt. The top of her head barely comes to his chest. One wouldn’t expect such a tiny woman to be capable of the brutal violence she’s become famous for. Her hold on Edward now is firm, but far from brutal.

“Harley,” he warns gently. “Unhand me this instant.”

“Or what?” she challenges, looking up to meet his gaze. Her blue eyes are focused, but there is an ever present playfulness in them. 

“Then I shall make you.”

Harley smirks, squeezing just a bit tighter. “Then make me.”

Ed tries. He really does. But the strain causes his spine to protest sharply. He huffs through clenched teeth. “Harley,” he says, softly. It might have been pleading, if the Riddler ever pleaded. “I have to work.”

“Or,” she says, lessening her hold slightly. “I’ll make you a mug a’ hot cocoa and we can hang out for a while. And then you can go back to drawin’ your Bat traps.”

That does sound nice… 

He sighs. “Fine.”

“Good. Now c’mon!” She pulls away from their hostage situation of an embrace to guide him over to the couch. Once he’s seated, and his sore back begins to settle, Harley takes the blanket she had been under before and drapes it over Ed, up to his shoulders. He clings to it, subconsciously, craving its warmth.

Harley pokes around in the attached kitchenette for a few minutes, fetching Edward’s favorite mug and a packet of cocoa powder. “I only have the cheap stuff,” she says. “I hope that’s ok.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” It’s not, actually. The cheap stuff tastes like mildly chocolatey bath water. But Harley is such a sweetheart and Ed is practicing being grateful. 

As Harley comes back into the living room to hand him his mug, he notices now that she’s wearing an oversized blue sweater, with the image of a dreidel knit into the front. “Is it Hanukkah already?” he asks. Suddenly he’s feeling the full weight of his multi-day hyperfocus session.

She nods. “It started at sundown.” 

“I’m sorry I forgot. I’ll get you a present while I’m out tomorrow, promise.”

“You don’t have to do that. I only kind of celebrate anyway. And I don’t even have a proper menorah this year.” She sits on the opposite end of the couch, her own mug in hand. 

“Hey,” he says. “I thought you were supposed to be going out with Pamela tonight. What happened?”

Harley sighs. “I think she’s mad at me.”

Ed quirks an eyebrow her way. “What did you do?”

Harley sinks back into the arm of the couch. “I was tryin’ to be helpful,” she laments.

“What did you do?” he asks again, leaning forward.

She huffs, crossing her arms in front of herself in embarrassment. “I watered her succulents.”

Ed simply stares at her.

“They’re like, little baby cactus things.”

“I’m aware of what succulents are,” he says quickly. I know everything, he doesn’t add out loud. “They’re not big on water.”

Harley covers her face in her hands and groans. “They all died.”

Pamela must be downright livid. Her plants are her children. But Ed can’t help but laugh. He tries not to, but his entire body shakes as the giggles escape him. 

Harley’s eyes narrow. “This is serious, Ed! Red was really pissed.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just…” He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “That’s so funny!”

Harley opens her mouth to tell him off, but then she starts to laugh too. Their giggle fit lasts nearly ten minutes, every time one of them begins to quiet down, the other’s face gets them going again. They laugh until they’re both wheezing, clutching their sides in pain. Ed has tears running down his cheeks. He sniffs, rubbing his face clean with his sleeve. 

Harley hands him the TV remote. “Pick something,” she instructs him. ‘I’ll watch whatever you want to.” 

She sets her empty mug onto the coffee table and lies down, bringing her legs up to rest across Edward’s lap, locking him down. It’s her way of keeping him from retreating back to the dark of his bedroom like he’s been so prone to doing lately. As much as her meddling in his life irritates him, it’s nice to be taken care of. He takes one of her stocking feet in his hand, squeezing absent mindedly. She hums in appreciation. Ed won’t ever say it aloud, but this back and forth they have, this physical contact between them –platonic as it may be- is the only thing keeping him going these days. Edward quite literally owes this woman his life.

“I’ll help you,” Harley says after a long silence.

“Help me what?”

She grins. “I’ll help you capture Batman.”

???

 

(Arkham Asylum, Three Months ago)

 

“Do you want me to kill him?” Harley asked. She was following behind Edward in the Asylum library, a stack of books in her arms so high she could barely peer over the top of them.

Ed ran his finger over the spines of the books on the shelf in front of him. He stopped, pulled one of them from the shelf, and placed it on top of the stack Harley was holding. “No, I don’t want that,” he said. “I don’t know what I want, really.”

He fumbled with his walker, moving on to the next aisle. 

“Ok,” Harley said. “But you just say the word, Eddie, and I’ll do it.”

“I know,” he replied, quietly amused at her spunk. “And likewise, if you ever asked, I’d be more than happy to take out the Joker.”

She was quiet for a while. Ed was almost sorry he’d said anything. Her broken arm had mended, but he knew the hurt from her ex ran deep. 

“Do ya think you have enough books?” she asked, and he was grateful that she’d changed the subject herself. 

They sat together at one of the circular wooden tables, and she laid the books out on it.

“Well, we can only check out ten each,” he said, pursing his lips as he examined a copy of Intro to Herpetological Medicine. “I’ll have to sort through these some more.” 

“Honestly, Eddie, who reads textbooks for fun?” she chided, patting his shoulder.

“No touching!” the library security guard warned from across the way.

They both rolled their eyes. 

“We should make out, just to piss him off,” Harley whispered jokingly.

Ed let out a loud laugh, grasping at the walker so he wouldn’t fall off his chair. 

 

???

 

Arkham was hell. Books helped pass the time but weren’t always feasible because the pain killers Edward was on turned his brain to mush. And they didn’t even get rid of the pain. Some days it was so bad that he couldn’t even get himself out of bed. They’d make him get up anyway. It took two, sometimes three orderlies to drag him to his feet and dress him in the morning. Then he would sit alone in the mess hall, staring bleakly at his breakfast. The food was unappetizing even when he wasn’t nauseous from his meds. 

He had group therapy in the morning after breakfast, followed by physical therapy, then lunch and recreational time (Ed only got an hour because his PT cut into it), and one-on-one therapy. That one was a waste of time and everyone involved knew it. Ed talked with his therapist, certainly, he talked her ear off. But never about himself. Today he was listing off all the native song birds of New Jersey. Recitation calmed his nerves. 

“How is your back today, Edward?” she asked when he was finished.

“It fucking hurts,” he said honestly. “Just like yesterday.”

“Is the pain medication helping at all?” 

He shrugged. “Not really. It just makes me sick.”

She frowned. “Maybe you should talk to Dr. Samuels about that.”

“We’ve already tried different ones. They all make me sick.” He fiddled with a loose thread on the couch he was sitting on. “All of my meds make me sick. I don’t need them.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Edward. Your fluoxetine seems to help you considerably.”

“Now Doctor,” he said. “You’re encroaching on my boundaries.”

“I can help you, Edward, if you let me.”

He shook his head. “Do you want to know all the song birds that live in Pennsylvania?” 

“Sure, Edward,” she said, settling back in her chair. “Tell me.” 

 

???

 

Harley sat beside him at dinner. She slid a folded up piece of paper under his tray.

He unfolded it in his lap, under the table. It was a drawing of a cartoon clown. A big green speech bubble above his head said “Cheer up Eddie!”

“Is this crayon?” he asked, folding it and slipping it into the waistband of his pants. 

She nodded, smiling. “They had your favorite color.”

“Do you still have it?” 

“No… I tried to swipe it for you on my way out of art therapy but Mason caught me.”

“Shit,” Ed said. He moved his food around on the tray with his plastic fork. The rice was so overcooked it was like trying to eat pebbles. “That asshole takes his job too seriously.”

Harley ate her own food, paying no mind to the texture or taste. This woman seemed content just about anywhere. “Do you like it?” she asked.

“Like what?”

“My drawin’ I did ya!”

“Oh, yeah. I like it a lot. Sorry, Harl, I’m spacey today.” 

“S’ok,” she said. “I think we have group together tomorrow.”

“That’ll be fun. Today they made me hug Killer Croc and tell him he was ‘worthwhile.’ What does that even mean?”

She laughed. “Waylon is a good boy.”

“Yeah… when he’s not eating people.”

She laughed more. 

Ed smiled for the first time that day.  
-

The next morning, his back and legs were in so much pain that he had tears in his eyes. 

“Out of bed, Nygma,” the orderly told him.

“I can’t,” he said through gritted teeth. 

The orderly motioned for his coworker to help him lift Ed out of bed, like they’d done before. The man’s hands on his hip were like knives to his broken nerves.

“Don’t touch me!” he screamed. 

The orderlies hesitated, looking at each other.

A muscular guard walked up behind them. It was Mason, the guard who’d taken Harley’s crayon. “What’s going on in here? Nygma, it’s time to get your ass up.”

“I can’t move,” he said. “My back is broken, in case you forgot. Why don’t you go pick on someone your own size? King Kong, perhaps?”

Mason’s face went red and he practically shoved the two orderlies out of his way, as he reached over and yanked Ed out of bed, tossing him to the hard cement floor.

The pain was blazing through Ed’s body. It was blinding. “Fuck you!” he cried. “Fuck all of you!”

Another guard was in the cell now. “What happened?”

“Nygma is being a little shithead again,” Mason told him, pressing the toe of his boot firmly into Ed’s side for added measure.

“Do you want to go to solitary?” the second guard asked Ed. 

His whole body was shaking. He tried to push himself up onto his elbows, but collapsed back down again. He panted. “What I want… is a doctor.”

The second guard turned to the two orderlies. “One of you go fetch the attending physician.”

They both left. 

The second guard disappeared after a few minutes as well, discontent with waiting. 

Mason’s boot was still pressed against the edge of Ed’s ribcage. He stared down at him, as if daring Ed to move. What an ugly, ugly man. 

“It’s so good to see you on your back like this,” he hissed at Ed. “This is where you belong. You’re scum, Nygma. Goddamn scum.” 

“Fuc-“Ed started, but the toe of Mason’s boot pushed threateningly between two of his ribs. 

“Shut up.”

When the doctor came, he shot an angry look at Mason before asking, “What happened?”

“The dumb lunatic fell out of bed,” Mason said, shrugging his shoulders.

I am not dumb, I’m a genius. And don’t you dare call me a lunatic, you… 

 

???

 

Edward spent two days in the infirmary. They refused to give him x-rays, even though he had asked very politely. He wanted to make sure Mason hadn’t re-fractured anything. But the doctors only waved their hands and turned up the dial on his morphine drip. 

 

When he returned to his cell, he discovered that his books were gone. Someone had stolen them while he was away. And not only did he have no reading material to pass the time with, now he was going to be reprimanded for misplacing library books.  
He didn’t sleep much.

 

The morphine withdrawals made his skin itch like mad. He scratched first because of the itch, and then because it was at least something to do.  
His fingernails had blood caked underneath them all day.

 

Nobody talked to him unless they had something cruel to say. Everyone aside from Harley, of course. She was a darling. 

 

Oswald sent him letters. Ed didn’t open them.

 

The shower was the most frightening part of his day. It was difficult to get clean while also supporting himself with the walker. He was always afraid he might slip and fall, that he’d be unable to get up and would drown in an inch of water. Or that someone would come in and stab him to death while his back was turned. His heart pounded every time the water came on. 

No one ever hurt him, but they could have. They easily could have. And that vulnerability was something Edward could not stomach. 

He never got his hair as clean as he would have liked, either.

-  
Someone threw a fit and broke a window in the rec room. It was supposed to be shatter-proof glass, but what’s shatter-proof when you’re dealing with super humans?  
Ed barely realized what he was doing when he tucked the shard of glass into his waistband.  
He made up his mind as soon as he saw it. 

-

His cell was drafty and grey and he despised it. It was not the place he wanted to die in. The library, though, seemed a good choice. It was the only place in the Asylum that had ever really brought him peace. (At least not this time around. It was different five years ago, when he was here with him. No, not him. The other him… But that was a long time ago, and those memories were too bitter to bring him joy now.) 

The piece of glass was warm from being pressed up against his hip all day. There was an indent in his skin where it had been. He held it in his hand for a long time. Waiting for a reason to stop himself. No reason came. 

“Good bye,” he whispered, to no one at all.

There was so much more blood gushing out of his wrist than he thought there would be. He had seen plenty of people bleed out before, many of them by his own hand, but for some reason it never occurred to him that he had as much of the stuff in his own body as everyone else. He had always assumed he was not like other men. 

But he was not a super human. 

He was only a man. Intellect be damned. 

It hurt, dying. It hurt almost as much as his back. 

A blackness was enveloping him now. He was so tired. He laid his head on the book shelf behind him, began to doze off. 

-  
“Eddie!” 

He heard fabric tearing.

There were warm hands on his arms, rough cloth pressing hard against his wrist. He felt sticky. Why was he sticky?

“Eddie, what did you do? Oh, Eddie, no, no, no.” It was Harley. She had torn the sleeve right off her own shirt and was applying pressure to his slashed wrist. 

“Harley,” he said. His voice was faint, far away, even in his own head. 

“It’s not too deep… You’ll be ok,” she whispered. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the infirmary.”

He wasn’t sure he’d make it. That was an awfully long way to walk, and his legs were so stiff. Luckily someone saw them struggling in the hallway, and the doctors came and scooped him into a wheelchair and wheeled him off. 

Harley tried to follow, but two guards grabbed her. “What are you doing out of group?” one of them asked, pulling her away from Ed. It was only then that Ed realized she’d been crying.

He passed out again on the way to the infirmary.

 

???

 

More stitches. More bed rest. But no morphine this time. And when he was out of the infirmary, more whispers. Sometimes it was louder than a whisper. Sometimes it was a shout, the mocking words chasing him down the hallway and boring into his ears, lingering like a song stuck in his head. They would play in his mind over and over and over for hours after.

The Riddler was a broken man -in body, mind, and spirit- and everybody knew. 

He wished that Harley had just let him die.  
-

After his suicide attempt, Edward was under close surveillance. His cell was searched twice a day, and he’d had to prove that he could be trusted with bed sheets. He wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, even the bathroom, unattended. A guard was there every morning, watching him clean himself in the shower. The man’s eyes lingered a little too long for Ed’s comfort, but he said nothing. He kept his head down, stayed out of trouble, wasn’t sassy with the guards. He participated in group therapy, and he was cooperating with his one-on-one therapist. Ok, he had stopped reciting bird facts in one-on-one therapy, and that was basically the same thing as cooperating.

His back was becoming stronger every day. Eventually he stopped needing the walker to get around, and he was able to carry things in his arms without his spine feeling like it was going to snap. The daily pain lessened, somewhat, but it didn’t go away.

It wouldn’t. Not ever.

Harley sat beside him every time they had a meal block together, and she’d prattle on about her day, and every now and then she’d slip one of her silly little doodles under his lunch tray. He saved them all, hiding them behind a loose brick in the wall of his cell. She never mentioned what had happened that night, and he appreciated that. It was all his therapist seemed to want to talk about these days. 

He had seen the scars on Harley’s wrists. She usually kept her sleeves down but sometimes they’d roll up. And when he saw them, it was then that he realized why she had taken such an interest in him. Why she was so kind when everyone else had been keeping their distance. She knew. She hid it well, beneath her cheery harlequin persona, but she was broken too. 

Maybe, if they stuck together, they could figure out how to become unbroken.

-  
Their escape was impromptu. A lightning storm, which may or may not have been natural, had caused a black out, and the ensuing riot was nearly instantaneous. Edward and Harley found each other fairly quickly among the chaos. She grabbed him by the hand, and they ran. They ran as fast and as far as they could go. When they finally stopped, lungs heaving and legs aching, Harley grabbed Ed and hugged him tightly around the middle and wept into his chest. It was as if all the pressure building under her smiling exterior for all those months had reached its peak, and was pouring out. 

“We’re finally free,” she said, sobbing. “Eddie, we’re finally free.” 

 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I'm sorry that this chapter was super angsty, I needed to show just how much Batman fucked Ed up (obviously Bruce feels really horrible and guilty about it but Edward wouldn't know that.) But it's OK, because in chapter three Ed gets to go on out on a date with everybody's favorite professor of psychology *wink wink* and it goes... well, we'll see how it goes hahaha


	3. Edward and Jonathan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, I’m here.” Ed gestures vaguely to himself, hands swaying in the air. “Why are you?”
> 
> “I was also told that you’re single now.”
> 
> The frown on Edward’s lips deepens. “Oh, so you came here to? What? Rub it in?”
> 
> Jonathan’s brow is furrowed, he seems a little confused. “No. No, I, well,” he searches for the words. “I wanted to ask if I could take you out to dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edward goes out on a date with his ex-boyfriend, Jonathan Crane. Let's see if they can get through it without killing each other or any innocent bystanders, shall we?

(Present day)

The next morning, there is a knock at the door. Harley answers. 

“Oh, Doctor Crane! It’s good to see ya!“

“Hello, Harleen. So sorry for coming by unannounced, but might I find Edward here? Ahhh, Edward!” His icy grey eyes hone in on Ed, who instinctively sinks lower into the sofa.

Jonathan crosses the room in three strides, towering over everything in the small apartment. He stands over Ed, eyes glinting with… what? Ed has no idea.

“Jonathan,” he says dryly.

Jon’s voice is deep and creaky as always. To think, Ed used to find that voice sexy. Ha! “I heard you were out of Arkham finally. Pamela Isley told me you were staying here.”

Ivy! Ed is going to choke that little weed when he sees her next. He goes to shoot Harley an angry look but she’s disappeared into the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Ed gestures vaguely to himself, hands swaying in the air. “Why are you?”

“I was also told that you’re single now.”

The frown on Edward’s lips deepens. “Oh, so you came here to? What? Rub it in?”

Jonathan’s brow is furrowed, he seems a little confused. “No. No, I, well,” he searches for the words. “I wanted to ask if I could take you out to dinner.”

Ed is genuinely surprised. He doesn’t attempt to hide it. “Uhhh…”

Jonathan stares at the floor. 

Oh jeez, Ed thinks. I’ve gone and hurt his spooky feelings. “I guess that would be ok,” he says slowly. 

Jon smiles weakly. Some warmth crosses his gaunt face. “I was thinking seven o’clock. Tonight. I can pick you up.”

Ed nods. What the hell am I doing? “Sounds good. I’ll see you tonight, then.” 

Once Jonathan has left and Ed hears the outside door close behind him, he scrambles to his feet. “Oh my God, Harley,” he says rapidly, clutching her side. “Oh God, why did I say yes?”

She laughs. “He’s sweet. In a will-kill-you-in-your-sleep kinda way.” 

Ed groans. “I hope he at least takes me somewhere nice.”

???

Jonathan does not, in fact, take Edward somewhere nice. When the truck pulls up outside the seedy little bar, which is located on a dirt road, just outside the city limits, Ed has to suppress a groan. 

“Do you remember this place?” Jonathan asks. 

It’s the same bar they hid out at when they escaped Arkham together, five years ago. They had made quite a mess of the place that night. It used to be a fond memory for both of them, but Edward hasn’t thought fondly about Jonathan Crane in a long time. 

Ed is looking down at his cell phone. “Yeah,” he answers, voice gruff. “Do they even sell food here?”

“They do. I’ve heard it’s actually quite good.” Jonathan goes around the truck to help Ed get out. 

Ed steps down carefully, using Jon’s shoulder for balance. “We’ll see.”

The bar is an absolute shithole. Ed feels like he needs a shower just from walking inside. It’s dimly lit by sparse hanging lamps and the neon window signs which flicker with age. There are too many people. The patrons at the bar are seated elbow to elbow. The place stinks. Arm pits and old beer and the faint smell of bleach. The ancient jukebox is playing an old bluegrass tune. Ed sighs. At least he knows Jon hasn’t brought him here to kill him. Far too many witnesses.

Jonathan’s large hand is on the center of Edward’s back, guiding him through the crowd to a table in the farthest corner of the bar. He wants to shove the hand off and tell Jon not to touch him, but he realizes that its function there is to keep him from falling. He keeps forgetting that he’s a broken old man now.

“Why here?” Ed asks, after they’ve seated and given the waitress their drink orders. 

Jon folds his hands under his sharp chin. “I was feeling sentimental.”

“Bullshit.” Ed’s eyes wander around, pausing on the men playing billiards across the room. He shouldn’t be out in public so soon. It’s only been two weeks, and he and Harley are fugitives. This was such a bad idea, on all counts. 

“Ok, you’re right. I have no mind for sentimentality,” Jon admits. “But I know you do.”

Ed eyes him. “Trying to manipulate me back into your arms by appealing to my nostalgia? I would have to be nostalgic in order for that to work.”

Jonathan is silent, expressionless. It’s infuriating.

How does he do that? Ed wonders. And why do I let it get to me?

The waitress -a middle-aged, heavy-set woman- delivers their drinks wordlessly and disappears back into the crowd. 

“At the very least you’ll have to get me drunk,” Ed teases, bored already with Jonathan’s silence. He takes a dramatic sip of his martini.

Jon’s eyes are distant, his fingertips dancing gently on the neck of his beer bottle. Interesting, how he’s chosen beer instead of whiskey. “Hm,” he says. 

Ed rolls his eyes. “Ever the conversationalist, Jon.”

Jon’s eyes snap onto him. “I don’t really know what to say to you.”

“I can think of a dozen things off the top of my head that you absolutely should say to me. The very least of which being an apology for not talking to me for two entire years.” 

“I talked to you,” Jon says.

“We ran into each other a few times while we were working. That doesn’t count. Besides, you were wearing the mask. I couldn’t be sure you were even you.”

Jon’s hand twitches, as if he’s made to move it but then changed his mind. “What was I supposed to do?” he asks into the bottle of beer. He swallows heavily. “I couldn’t approach you. I couldn’t see you with him.”

“Please don’t talk about Oswald,” Ed says darkly.

“Sore subject?” Jon pokes.

“Fuck you.” 

Edward swallows the last few drops of his martini, setting the glass down hard on the table. He should just leave. But instead, he motions to the waitress. “Keep these coming, if you could, please,” he requests politely. When she leaves, he turns back to Jonathan. “Why did you bring me here?” he asks for the second time. 

“It seemed as good a place as any. Neutral ground. Low profile. And as I said, I was hoping to appeal to your more reminiscent side.”

Ed folds a napkin in half, then in half, then in half again, smaller and smaller and smaller. “Not sure how I feel about reminiscing with my ex right now.” 

Jonathan goes quiet again. When the waitress returns with their second round of drinks, he asks Ed, “Do you want food?”

“I was under the impression that this was meant to be a dinner.”

Jonathan orders for the both of them. This enrages Ed, not because of the presumption, but because Jon gets his order right. It’s enough to make him stay. 

Another martini down and Edward’s mouth is running. He’s talking about his broken back and his surgery, about Harley, about their friendship, about Pamela, about Arkham, about how Harley saved his life there, about the blood… 

“Edward…” Jon’s gruff voice contains the faintest touch of concern. 

“I’m OK now, mostly. It’s been… an eventful year.”

Jon reaches across the table. He doesn’t touch Ed’s hand, simply places his own beside it. Ed feels a lump in his throat. 

“It’s been awful, Jon,” he says, voice cracking slightly.

He doesn’t touch Jon’s fingers with his own, though he wants to. Mostly because he doesn’t dare hold hands with another man in the middle of this redneck bar. And also, because Jon hasn’t earned that right just yet. 

The waitress brings their food, finally. But when Ed gets his plate, his stomach lurches. He stares at the turkey sandwich, cut neatly in half in two equal-sized rectangles. He goes to speak, but Jon is already motioning to regain the waitress’ attention. 

“I’m sorry to be a bother, ma’am, but could my friend here get a replacement for his sandwich, and this time please ask the kitchen to cut it diagonally, into triangles, not rectangles. I’ll pay for both. It would be much appreciated.”

“What’s wrong with that one?” She points at the offending poultry dish. 

‘I’m sure it’s fine. But we’d much prefer one that’s been cut into triangles.” Watching Jonathan feign politeness is almost entertaining. 

“Yeah, OK, whatever,” the waitress says. “Triangles.” She waves her hand dismissively and walks off.

“Thank you,” Ed breathes. His cheeks and ears are flushed. He knows he’s bright red.

Jonathan has never harried Edward over his quirks, (Obsessive compulsive disorder, his file at Arkham says, but Ed is averse to the term ‘disorder’) not like everyone else always does. Sure, he teases him sometimes. Just like Ed teases him. But never out of cruelty, never out of anger. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a (former) psychiatrist. Or maybe it’s because he has his own mental illness that he’s contending with. Maybe it’s because he loved Edward, once upon a time. Jonathan Crane has never been the type of man to reshape his life to accommodate another person, but he had done it for Ed. For a while, anyway. 

Ed tilts his head back, making quick work of his third martini.

-

 

The waitress lays the plate containing the properly cut sandwich on the table with an unnecessary amount of force, making Edward jump a little in his seat. She’s gone before he can say anything.  
“Kind of a bitch that one, huh?” he mutters.

Jonathan shrugs, mouth full. He’s eating fried chicken and biscuits. For someone who takes such great pains to distance himself from his former life, he sure is a country boy. Ed can remember all the fights they’d gotten into over Jon’s diet. He barely ever ate, and when he did he ate garbage. God forbid Ed try to get him to eat something healthy, something green… 

They eat their food and imbibe more drinks. The alcohol loosens them both up, and they chat quite happily, gossiping about the other rogues and exchanging some light banter. Jon’s wit is as quick as it ever was, and he has snark to spare, and he takes every possible opportunity he gets to make Ed laugh. This is going surprisingly well.

Jon gets up and excuses himself to the rest room. 

While he’s gone, Ed sips at the glass of water in front of him that has thus far gone untouched. He can feel his head buzzing with drink. He’s a bit giddy, honestly. It’s been a long time since he’s had someone’s attention on him like this. Sure, Harley is lovely company and she dotes on Ed. But it’s in a sisterly type of way. Jonathan’s attention is entirely different. There is a longing in his gaze, a reverence, almost. And now that Ed thinks about it, it makes him feel terribly, terribly sad. 

Jon returns from the men’s room, wiping his damp hands on his shirt front. 

“Why did you leave?” Ed asks, before he’s even seated.

“I just went to the bathroom.”

“No,” Ed says. “I mean before… when you disappeared on me two years ago.”

Jonathan folds his hands in front of his mouth. He takes a deep breath. “You told me to,” is his simple answer.

Ed runs his fingers down the condensation on the outside of his glass. He draws a question mark. “I didn’t mean it. You should have known that I didn’t mean it.”

“Is this really what you want to talk about right now?” Jon asks. He’s taken off his glasses and he’s rubbing at his eyes with his thumb and index finger. The onset of one of his headaches, no doubt..

“I need to understand.”

Jonathan wipes the lenses of his glasses on his shirt and puts them back on. He looks at Ed, soberly despite the beer in him. “I was tired, Ed. I was tired of fighting, and tired of the games, I needed a break… You told me to go so many times; I wanted to show you what you were really asking for.”

“You were… punishing me?” Ed asks.

“Not a punishment, no. I thought I was teaching you a lesson. I thought that if I left, you’d realize…” Jon trails off. 

“Realize what?” 

Jon shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. My lesson backfired spectacularly.”

Ed doesn’t say anything. He understands what Jonathan was doing now. He had abandoned Ed so that he would see how much he needed Jon in his life. That might have worked, if he’d left for a few days, maybe even a couple weeks. But he was away for far too long. By the time he’d decided to come back, Ed had moved on, was already cohabitating with Oswald. That must have crushed Jonathan. 

“You’re stupid,” Ed says after a while.

“I won’t deny that.” 

“But I was… unwise… as well.” 

The corner of Jon’s mouth twitches just slightly. “I think that’s the closest to self-aware I’ve ever seen you.” 

Ed rolls his eyes. “Where’s that waitress? I need another martini.”

A heavy hand presses into the back of Ed’s neck. He jerks forward out of the unseen’s person’s grasp to spin around, and the sudden movement sends an electric shock down his spine. “Who the f-“  
It must be the cook. He’s wearing a greasy apron and his shirt sleeves are rolled up past his elbows. He’s not as tall as Ed, certainly not as tall as Jonathan, but he’s wide. He could probably fit two of Ed between his shoulders. 

“Are you the asshole that didn’t like my sandwich?” he asks. 

“I’m the asshole that enjoyed your sandwich very much, actually,” Ed answers. “Once it was cut to my liking.”

The man appears unamused. Damn. 

“I don’t appreciate divas in my bar,” he says, and his eyes shift to study Jonathan for a second. 

Jon is sitting quietly in his seat. He’ll only step in once he’s deemed it necessary. 

“We’re paying customers, same as everyone else,” Ed is telling the cook. “I’ll pay right now, actually, if you’d like.” He pulls out his green snakeskin wallet. 

The cook’s expression changes. “Wait a minute… I know you.”

Uh-oh.

“You’re the fucking Riddler, aren’t you? And you-“His eyes travel up Jon’s long, spindly legs. “You’re the Scarecrow! I thought I knew you! You motherfuckers owe me a lot of money in property damage, you know! And I had to replace my entire wait staff!” 

Jonathan is standing now. 

Ed can see a man with a baseball bat stepping out from behind the bar. The bitchy waitress is leaning against the door with a scowl on her face. Most of the crowd has stopped to watch what happens. Ed wishes he’d brought a weapon. Why hadn’t be brought a weapon? He must be going soft in his middle age. Fuck…

“You owe me, a lot,” the cook says again.

Unexpectedly, Jonathan yanks Ed into his arms and wraps his long coat around them both. His hand fetches something from the inside pocket and he launches it to the center of the floor with a click. His enormous hand is on Ed’s face, covering his mouth and nose tightly. Ed struggles, panicked. He’s being strangled to death. He makes to bite Jon’s fingers through, but stops as he sees the orange smoke rising from the floor, and the crowd simultaneously begin to choke and gag. Suddenly he’s grateful for the fingers clutching his jaw.

They run, out the door before the gas can reach them, leaping into Jonathan’s truck, and peeling out of the parking lot with a banshee-like screech. 

Now this is a date! 

The adrenaline is pulsing through Ed’s entire body. It feels glorious. It’s been an eternity since he felt this rush. This. This is what he lives for. The excitement. His head is spinning, and he leans his head back into the leather seat cover and strokes his own thighs to ground himself. If Jon happens to look over right now, well that’s his own problem. 

When they are several miles down the road, and his epinephrine levels have begun to balance out, Ed finds his voice again. “Who brings fear toxin to a date?” he asks. 

Jon’s eyes don’t leave the road before him. “You should be glad I did. That man might’ve killed you.”

“Lucky for me,” Ed says. “I have a mad scientist that’s sweet on me.”

Jon ignores the rib. He turns the truck down a dark side road. “Well, we can never go back there again.”

“Thank the baby Jesus!” Ed exclaims, holding his hands together in mock prayer. “I fucking hated that bar.”

“Me too,” Jon admits with a shrug. He makes a right turn, then a left, then a right, in case they’re being followed. “I don’t know why people are always thanking baby Jesus,” he muses. “He never performed any miracles as a baby. It was the lowest point of his career, really.”

Ed remarks, “People just like babies, I guess?”

Jonathan laughs. It starts out as a low chuckle and quickly builds to a hearty, full-throated laugh. Ed’s chest floods with warmth. Jon’s real, genuine laughter is a rarity to behold. And it makes Ed’s heart sing.

They’re both laughing, a mile down the road. Jon rubs his eye with a thumb. “Ahh,” he sighs. “I’ve missed this.”

His right hand leaves the steering wheel and settles on top of Ed’s knee.

Ed doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He just lets the hand sit there, thumb stroking idly at the creases in fabric for several minutes as they drive. 

The cab of the pick-up is filthy. The floor is littered with dried mud, and trash, and straw. When Jonathan had come to pick Edward up earlier, and he saw the mess, he almost hadn’t gotten in. The leather seat covers are cracked and sun bleached. There’s stuffing poking out of a hole in the seat. The truck is so terribly neglected, so terribly Jonathan. But it smells great in here. Like warm leather and earth and medical supplies, and cologne. Jon’s cologne. He doesn’t wear it often, he doesn’t see the point in it. Ed gave up trying to explain the point a long time ago. But when they were together, Jon would wear it every now and then, for him. And he’s wearing it now. It blends with Jon’s own natural scent so beautifully. 

Edward inhales deeply, a rush of memories hitting him. Memories of all the nights he had cuddled close to Jon in their shared bed. Of lazy mornings, making love. Of fighting with him, tears spilling, insults flying, throat hoarse from shouting, but wanting nothing more than to wrap himself around the man, to grovel at his feet, and beg him ‘I’m sorry I drove you out. I’m sorry that I’m impatient and needy and obnoxious. Please stay.’ But being too stubborn and proud to say the words. Instead he had told him to go. And Jon had obeyed. This time, if there actually is a this time (he really doesn’t know), Ed will try not to be so stubborn.

“I missed you too,” he says at last, laying his hand over Jon’s. 

-

 

Edward and Jonathan sit in the black pick-up, in front of Ed and Harley’s apartment. They are both silent, the only sound the idling of the truck and the occasional sound of one of the two men shifting in his seat. Ed supposes he’s meant to say good night and go upstairs. But he doesn’t want to leave. Not when Jon smells the way he does, looks the way he does. Edward hadn’t appreciated Jon’s appearance earlier, considering the mood he’d been in, but now he sees just how put together he is. Under the old brown leather coat, his grey button down shirt is crisp and recently pressed. His black dress pants too. He’s clean shaven, and it seems he at least attempted to comb the unruly mess he calls hair. He cleans up well. 

Snow begins to fall, sparkling in the golden glow of the porch light. Edward watches Jon’s eyes, dancing subtly at the sight of the snow. Jonathan spent the first eighteen years of his life in Georgia, and Ed knows that no matter how many years he lives in Gotham, the amount of snow that falls is always something that Jon marvels at. 

They watch together quietly. 

“I had a good time tonight,” Jon’s voice breaks the silence. “I hope you did too, despite that incident at the bar."

Incident. 

Ed looks at him, at those stone grey eyes. Blue, his driver’s license says. But they are grey. Captivating, like a coming storm. 

Dangerous.

Like skydiving. 

Base jumping. 

Tying a cinder block to your legs and plunging yourself into the ocean. 

“…but I understand, if you don’t want to do this again. I just had to try.” How long has Jonathan been talking? How long has Edward not been listening? “Edward? Please answer me.”

Ed sucks in a hard breath. “No… No, I mean, yes. Yes, I want to do this again.”

Some of the tension leaves Jon’s shoulders. He leans in closer, and it’s then that Ed realizes he’s gradually been leaning in as well. 

Jonathan’s breath is heavy. He smells a little like beer. Ed realizes that maybe Jon shouldn’t have been driving, but he seems alright. 

Jon’s eyes shine in the dark of the truck, like an animal. “Edward,” he asks tentatively. “May I kiss you?”

Ed grins, wide. ”Feel free.” 

Jonathan presses his lips to Ed’s, pulling away just as quickly. It’s a chaste kiss. A nervous kiss. He looks down his nose at Edward, eyes dancing. He’s smiling. 

Oh, that smile. Those lips. This man. This ridiculous, spooky, crazy man, with his fear gas and his disaster area of a truck. Edward grabs Jon by the sides of the head and pulls him in for a deep kiss. He tongues at Jon’s mouth hungrily. Jon parts his lips, granting Ed’s tongue entrance. 

The loud moan that exits Ed’s mouth when they part is almost a sob. He climbs over the center console and straddles Jonathan’s lap. His hands slink inside Jon’s jacket, squeezing at the man’s slender body with his fingers. They kiss and kiss and kiss. Ed feels his hips grinding of their own volition, in a rhythm that matches their breathing. Jonathan’s erection is stabbing at him through his pants. Ed’s own is throbbing, nearly painfully. 

“Wanna come upstairs?” he whispers into Jonathan’s ear.

Jon’s response is a low groan, as Edward sucks hard on the skin of his neck. 

 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *fans self* Well that escalated quickly...
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Edward and Jonathan: Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward wasn’t sure what to make of the man he was now forced to share a cell with. He had heard of Jonathan Crane –the Scarecrow- before, of course. He even worked beside him very briefly, though the two had not been formally introduced. But this was the first time he ever saw him out of costume... This man was a professor of psychology? He looked like an undertaker.

(Harley and Edward’s apartment, Present Day)

 

Edward wakes slowly. The chill of the winter morning looming at the edge of his bed sheets. There is a long, skeletal figure lying beside him. A smile crosses Ed’s lips. Jonathan stayed the night? Ed had assumed he would be gone when he woke up. Even as they climaxed together the night before, and tangled themselves up in a panting, heaving pile of limbs, and Ed had drifted into a pacified slumber in Jon’s arms, he didn’t expect him to still be there in the morning. The sight of him now, salt and pepper hair sticking out in every which direction, shoulder rising and falling as he snores just slightly, it makes Ed’s heart skip a beat. 

A tight soreness fills his lower body as he moves. It’s been an awfully long time. He’d almost forgotten just how well-endowed the good doctor was.

Propping himself up on one shoulder, he admires the sleeping man in his bed. Jon is lying on his side, facing away. A truly monstrous human being. He’s so tall, his ankles and feet hang off the end of the bed. His shoulder blades jut out, creating deep pockets beneath them. His shoulders and back are littered with ten lifetimes’ worth of scars. His spine is prominent, lining his back like that of a dragon. Ed fights the urge to reach out and trace it, counting every vertebra. He isn’t sure where the boundaries are. What’s allowed. Whether or not morning-after cuddles are on the table. 

Ed wants to lie here and watch Jonathan sleep some more, but his bladder has other plans. He very gingerly slides off the bed, and tugs on a clean pair of boxers and some sweatpants. He spots the two condom wrappers that Jon had almost gotten into the waste basket. Ed picks them up and throws them away, smiling to himself. That second round had been a pleasant surprise. 

He tiptoes past the bed and out the door, careful to close it quietly. He heads to the bathroom, using the toilet and then brushing his teeth. He combs his hair, too, even though he’s just going to go back to bed. He stares hard at his own reflection. “Pace yourself, Eddie,” he whispers to himself. “If you fall for him now, you’re fucked.”

Harley is waiting for him outside the bathroom, holding a mug of coffee in both hands. Her smirk is almost punchable. “Doctor Crane spent the night, huh?”

Ed glares at her, and then waves his hand. “So what if he did? A boy can have fun, can’t he?”

“Looks like you boys had plenty of fun,” she teases. She pokes one of the many hickies trailing Ed’s torso, a little too hard.

He flinches, then straightens. “Jealous?

Harley snorts, making her way to the kitchenette. “I’m cooking breakfast. How does Spooky like his eggs?”

“Over easy,” Ed responds automatically.

He hears Harley chuckle to herself as she fetches a pan from the cabinet. 

-

When Ed returns to his room, he finds Jon awake, sitting up in the bed. He smiles at Edward. A soft, small smile. It lights up his heavy features in a way that makes Ed’s stomach back flip.

“Good morning, Edward,” Jonathan drawls sleepily. His accent is always heavier when he’s just waking up. 

“Hey.” Ed’s voice comes out higher than he intended. “How did you sleep?" 

“Quite well. Three hours or so.” That’s a good night’s sleep for Jonathan. “And you?”

Ed grins, sitting on the bed beside him. “Like a baby.”

Jonathan’s hand seeks his, bony fingers stroking Ed’s knuckles. He leans in, his lips trailing the curve of Ed’s neck. Ed shudders. “Hey, hey, not right now. I’m so sore.” 

“I only want to kiss you,” Jonathan whispers. He pulls Ed on top of his chest, lying back onto the bed, pulling the covers over them. Apparently morning cuddles are on the table after all. Edward snuggles into him, lips pressing against his in slow, drawn out motions. Jon’s hands are all over him, massaging his ever aching back. 

This is so… nice. So easy. 

Nothing is ever this easy. Ed knows there’s a catch coming; he’s been through this too many times not to anticipate it. And yet he can’t help himself. His palms slide down to Jon’s bare thighs, squeezing softly. Jonathan kisses him with a delicious hunger. Easy. 

-

The three rogues sit around the small red vinyl table, digging into their breakfast. Harley has made a generous amount of food. Two types of sausage, a dozen eggs, toast, fruit. A tall pot of coffee sits in the middle of the table. Ed watches Jonathan over the rim of his coffee mug. Jon is reading the morning paper as he chews, glasses pressed low on the bridge of his nose. He’s wearing Ed’s favorite viridian green bath robe, his hair damp from the shower. The sleeves are both too wide and too short for him and they hang loosely from his slim forearms. Edward finds him exquisite. 

Why on earth does this feel so natural? Waking up together, a morning shower, now having breakfast. It’s so domestic, so familiar. It’s as if the last two years never happened. Like they never broke up. The thought is like a hot stone in the pit of Ed’s stomach. 

Harley is looking expectantly from one man to the other, smiling from ear to ear. Ed looks at her, almost pleading. What do I do now? Is his silent question. 

“So, Doctor Crane,” Harley pipes. “Have any plans for the weekend?”

Pulled from his reading, Jonathan blinks at her for a second as if he’s surprised to see her there. “I’ve got a few errands to run in the city today,” he answers. Then he ponders for a moment. “A chemical supply company is getting a shipment tonight, at the harbor. I’m going to intercept it.” 

Ed is taken aback at Jonathan’s readiness to divulge his plan. He’s usually so secretive. So cryptic. 

“Want any help?” Harley offers, too quickly.

Ed coughs up the egg in his throat. “Harley-“ he hisses.

“If you’d like, you’re welcome to join me. Both of you,” Jonathan says, his icy eyes meeting Edward’s gaze. Under the table, a spidery hand squeezes around Ed’s knee. 

The hot pressure in his stomach bubbles up into his chest.

He’s absolutely, positively, fucked. 

 

???

 

(Gotham Harbor. Present Day.)

Edward tugs at the knot of his tie, straightens his bowler hat, fiddles with the buttons on his suit jacket. He hasn’t worn his Riddler outfit since the night of the accident, and donning it now doesn’t feel exactly the way he thought it would. It feels restrictive, like he’s a reptile with too-tight skin, in desperate need of molting. This isn’t the same suit he wore that night, of course. The first responders had made quick work of cutting that suit to shreds. He had been very upset to find the green strips folded neatly, almost mockingly, in a metal box with his shoes and hat and cane, when he and Harley raided the Personal Items room on their way out of the Asylum. But this one is exactly like it. The jacket and pants are a brilliant shade of emerald, as are his hat and tie, and underneath he wears a lilac vest and black button down shirt. The suit is perfectly tailored to Edward’s measurements, creating a striking silhouette. He looks great, he knows he does, and yet he feels strangled. Perhaps it’s time the Riddler updated his look…

Jonathan is observing him, wordlessly. His burlap Scarecrow mask hides his face. Ed wonders what facial expression he’s making, if he’s making one at all. 

On the black and white security monitor before them, Harley is working her seductive magic on an unsuspecting crewman. She motions for him to follow her into a supply closet, and just a moment later she’s reemerging. There’s a quick glimpse on the monitor of a slumped over body before she shuts the closet door behind her. She looks up at the camera, smiling, holding up a ring of keys so that Edward and Jonathan can see.

“Time to move,” Jonathan says, rising to his feet. In his costume, with the old brown fabric hugging his frame, he looks impossibly tall.  
Edward follows him. 

 

???

 

(Arkham Asylum. 5 years ago.)

Edward wasn’t sure what to make of the man he was now forced to share a cell with. He had heard of Jonathan Crane –the Scarecrow- before, of course. He even worked beside him very briefly, though the two had not been formally introduced. But this was the first time he ever saw him out of costume. Crane was tall, taller than Edward by at least five or six inches. His body was skeletal, pale skin wrapped tightly over slender bones. The Arkham jumpsuit hung off his long body loosely. Cord-like veins ran the length of his arms, leading down to a huge pair of scarred, worn old hands. His dark hair, flecked with silver, hung in front of his glasses. It was visibly greasy. His face was gaunt, angular but not particularly handsome –ugly, some might say- with wrinkles and lines etching across his face. Edward pegged him as being in his mid to late 40’s, but with the exhaustion in his grey eyes, he very well could have been older than that.

This man was a professor of psychology? He looked like an undertaker.

“Edward Nygma,” Ed introduced himself with a cool smile and an outstretched hand. “You probably know me as the Riddler.” 

Crane looked him once over, his cold stare lingering for a moment on the hand that was pointed at him. Then, with a not-so-subtle eye-roll, he turned away from Ed and went to sit on the empty bed across the cell. 

It was three days before he spoke a single word to Edward. 

“Move.”

Startled, Edward stepped out of his way instantly.

Two more days passed, and then Crane said more than a single word.

“What’s your greatest fear?” 

The question turned Edward’s veins to ice. He looked around the cell, as if there could possibly be another person Crane would be talking to. “You’re- you’re asking me?” 

“Yes. What is your greatest fear?” he repeated.

“Why on earth would I tell you that?” Edward snapped. 

Crane looked at him for an uncomfortably long time. His stare was terrifying. Then, without a word, he turned and lie down on the bed, face towards the wall. 

Ed didn’t sleep that night, just sat up in his bed watching the ghoulish man’s back rise and fall. 

 

Two weeks passed, with little to no interaction between the two of them. Edward gave the man his space, and in return he granted Ed the same. It was like living with a ghost. 

 

Edward sighed, laying his just-finished book on the pillow beside his head. That was the last one. Inmates were permitted one visit to the library per week, and were allowed to check out a maximum of ten books per visit. Ed, though he paced himself, had gone through his entire stack in in just two and a half days. How was he meant to occupy himself for the next four days and twelve hours? He was only allotted two hours of ‘recreational time’ a day, and there wasn’t anyone currently committed that he enjoyed talking to anyway. He thrashed angrily out from under his sheet and sat up.

Crane was asleep in his bed across the room. Or at least, he looked like he was asleep. Ed suspected that the man didn’t actually sleep at all, only pretended to in order to appear more human.

Ed’s eyes traveled from Crane’s dozing form to the pile of books on the small table beside his bed. They looked like text books, mostly. Calculus, chemistry, anthropology… Maybe, if Ed was quiet, he could nab one or two. He would return them as soon as he was finished.

He stood and, holding his breath, tiptoed across the cell. He reached for the book on the top of the pile, ‘Advanced Calculus.’ Some simple math would help calm his mind. Before his fingers could touch the tome, however, a deep voice stated, “Those are mine.”

Edward froze.

Crane hadn’t moved an inch. He was still facing the wall, thin sheet pulled up over his shoulder. I knew he didn’t sleep! Edward thought.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you would not touch my things.”

“They’re not yours, they belong to the library.” Ed couldn’t refrain from being contrarian.

“Nygma, I mean it.”

“Fine.” Ed slumped back to sit on his own bed. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and let out an exaggerated sigh.

Crane still hadn’t moved.

Edward was so bored. 

Then it hit him. 

“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer,” he began to sing, almost under his breath. “Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall!” His voice rose louder. “Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-eight bottles of beeeeer-“ 

Crane sprang up in his bed, staring at Edward. “What the hell are you doing?” 

Even louder now. “Take one down, pass it around, ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall!” 

Crane threw his pillow across the room at Ed’s face, knocking his glasses off. He had quite an arm on him. Surprising.

Undeterred, Ed kept singing. “Ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall-“

“Take the book!” Crane shouted. “Take them all! Just stop. Stop!”

Edward smiled, puffing his chest out in victory and striding over to exchange Crane’s pillow for the calculus book. He took it back to his bed and settled under his blanket happily. “Thanks, Spooky. I appreciate it,” he chimed, cracking open the text.

Silence. 

“You don’t have a pencil,” Crane said. 

“What?” Ed looked over to him with only his eyes.

“How are you planning to solve those equations without a pencil?”

Ed chuckled. What a pedestrian. “I do it all in my head,” he said haughtily, pointing at his own temple. “A pencil… hahaha!”

Crane regarded him for a second. “So you really are a genius. I thought that was just something you told people.”

Edward tried to ignore him, but the words exited his mouth of their own accord. “I’m a genius alright.” 

“What’s your IQ?” Crane asked, straightening his posture in interest.

“It varies from test to test. I don’t really put much stock into the intelligence quotient, though. It’s racist by design.” 

Crane nodded. “I agree.”

“Riddle me this,” Edward said suddenly, sitting up. “I come once in a year, twice in a week, but never in a day. What am I?”

Crane answered without hesitation. “The letter ‘E.’ Obviously.” Ed swore he saw the flash of a smile on his lips. “Ask me another.”

“Hmm… To cook the inside, you throw away the outside. Then you eat the outside and discard the inside.”

“Let’s see… it’s… corn on the cob.” Jonathan shook his head, chuckling. “You bastard.”

Ed clapped his hands together gleefully. “Yes, yes! Very good! Now, how about a harder one…” 

 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters will be known henceforth by their alternate title- 'Scriddler: Origins"
> 
> Thank you as always for reading!! 
> 
> XOXO


	5. Edward and Jonathan: Beginnings part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One evening, when Jonathan was at the peak of one of these periods of intense sleep deprivation, he did something surprising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Scriddler: Origins' continues...

(Arkham Asylum, 5 years ago)

The days felt shorter, now that Edward had company. Keeping Crane engaged in conversation was an uphill battle, though. There were still days when the man wouldn’t speak at all. When he would spend the entire day lying silently on his side, staring at the blank concrete wall. But Ed was learning how to get through to him. He liked to talk about politics and the sciences, and he especially enjoyed talking about his research. Edward listened with rapt attention, asking questions when he had them. Jonathan was excited to answer, and Ed had a feeling that no one had ever taken this much interest in anything the man had had to say. He could certainly empathize with that. Jonathan, in turn, seemed to enjoy Ed’s riddles, but only if he was in a good mood and already talking. A riddle on a bad day was met with glowering silence.

As the weeks went by, their respective personal defenses began to lower. Ed had started to call him Jonathan, or Jon, rather than Crane. And Jonathan had begun calling him Edward, instead of Nygma. It was a cautious friendship. Both men were dangerous in their own right. Both were killers. It was an easily forgotten fact, though, as they chatted contentedly over books of philosophy and poetry. During Rec time, they sat together and played game after game of chess. Some games took days to complete, Edward memorizing their positions on the board so they could set them back up and continue the following day. End game took the longest, nearly always ending in a pursuit as they moved their respective kings out of each other’s grasp. Edward always gloated when he won, which was nearly every time. But even then, Jonathan smiled at him, and his smile made Edward beam. It was so good to have a friend. 

Still, there were things that Edward found entirely unappealing about Jonathan. His hygiene being the worst of them. Ed had known inmates before at Arkham who had avoided bathing as a sort of protest against authority. A way of keeping control over at least one small facet of their lives, and of course to make the guards and orderlies uncomfortable. And no one wanted to do a cavity search on a man who hadn’t showered in weeks. Ed could understand that on a conceptual level, but the thought of sitting in his own filth for weeks made him feel ill. Jonathan, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any inkling that he was dirty in the first place. He always looked puzzled when the guards came and told him it was time for a shower. As if it was an alien concept to him. In fact, he seemed entirely unaware of his own body nearly all of the time. He would sit reading for hours in painfully awkward positions, and every time he would seem surprised at the aches in his legs when he stood. If they didn’t have scheduled meal times, he would probably starve to death, totally oblivious as to why. 

His hair was awful. Sometimes he’d return from the shower and it would be greasier than before, somehow. And no one seemed to have told him that deodorant had been invented. His fingernails were not long and jagged in order to accentuate his intimidating persona, as Ed had assumed at first; they were long because Jon simply didn’t trim them. He probably never had in his life, letting them chip and break off and grow back all of their own free will. And his toenails! Well… Ed tried not to even look at those. 

Jonathan didn’t sleep. Insomnia, Ed learned, had been something he struggled with his entire life. He was lucky to get two or three hours a night and those were usually scattered. When he did sleep, he was often plagued with nightmares, which were so terrible in nature that the usually quiet man would cry out, arms reaching for help from someone who never seemed to come. Sometimes he wouldn’t sleep at all for days. Ed quickly learned to grant the man his space when that happened, because the lack of rest made him an incredibly cranky bastard. 

 

One evening, when Jonathan was at the peak of one of these periods of intense sleep deprivation, he did something surprising. 

Edward had been reading silently, back to the wall and legs hanging off the side of the bed. He was determined not to speak at all. Earlier in the day he had made some off hand joke- something about Jon’s height or his weight or possibly about the horrific state of his toenails- and Jonathan had snapped. He practically lunged on Edward, utterly incensed, and gripped him by the shirt collar, growling a series of threats into his face. Ed was so taken off guard that he’d stumbled backward and fallen onto his bed. And he had stayed there ever since. Hours later, he was intent on his reading and on keeping out of the crosshairs of Jon’s misplaced wrath. 

And then, suddenly and without warning, Jonathan sat down on the edge of Ed’s bed.

He looked up cautiously, trying to ignore the pulse of fear in his throat, and saw that Jon was gazing down at him. He looked like he was on death’s doorstep. His usually sallow skin was now an alarming shade of ghost white. His eyes were soft, unfocused, heavy lids threateningly close to collapse. The half circles beneath them were dark purple. “Edward,” he said, voice hoarse. “I want to tell you something… But you must promise not to repeat it. To anyone. Ever. Not even me.” 

A secret? Ed tried to hide the excitement rising in his chest. He loved secrets. “I promise.”

It was surprising, how effortlessly Jonathan told him the story about his childhood. Edward realized early on in the telling that this was not a very fun secret at all. This was the kind of secret that destroyed a little piece of every person who learned it. He almost told Jon to stop, to go back to his bed and keep his horrible history to himself. But something told him Jon needed this, desperately. And so Ed listened, in earnest, even though the story made him sick. 

Jonathan told him all about how his mother had left him as an infant, under the care of his great grandmother, never to return. He told Edward about his religious upbringing, the small Georgia town he grew up in, the abuse he endured at the hands of his peers, of his church, of his ‘granny.’ He told him about the chapel, and the crows.

Ed wanted to cry, to vomit, to take Jon’s hands in his own and say something kind, to offer Jon any sort of comfort in the dark empty void he seemed to exist in. But Ed did none of those things. He simply listened, because that’s all Jon had asked him to do. 

When Jon was finished, without even giving Ed the chance to say anything about what he’d just learned, he went back to his own bed and fell immediately to sleep. He slept through the whole night, for the first time since he’d been there. 

 

Throughout the following days, Edward found himself taking every excuse to peer over at the scars covering Jonathan’s lean torso, the childhood wounds stretched and faded with time. Marks left from talons and gnashing beaks. He had inexplicable thoughts of touching them. Counting them. Asking for the story that each scar held. Edward had his own scars. Had his own sad story that he had never told anyone. He made up his mind to tell Jonathan several times, but every time he tried, his voice failed him. 

 

Sometimes, Ed’s eyes wandered to the rest of Jonathan’s figure. And he imagined what those long, sinewy legs would feel like in his grip. Wondered how talented Jonathan was with those enormous, veiny hands. Whether his skin would be warm to the touch, or cold like a corpse… 

 

-

 

“What’s your real name?” Jonathan asked one night.

“Edward,” Ed answered, bristling. 

“No, I mean, what was your name growing up? I know you weren’t born E. Nygma.” 

Ed closed his book in his lap, rubbing his temple. “That’s really no one’s business but mine,” he said shortly. 

“I’ve told you all about my early life and you’ve told me almost nothing about yours, not even your real name. But fair enough, I suppose.” Jonathan leaned forward, voice low. “Let’s talk instead about how you stare at my ass every time you think I’m not paying attention.” 

Ed felt the color drain from his own face. “Nashton,” he whispered quickly. 

“Pardon?”

“My name. I was Edward Nashton.” His fingers were beginning to dance in the air, anxiously. 

Jon was regarding him with what might have been amusement. “That’s all?”

Ed glowered. “I was born on a farm, a long way away from Gotham. My parents are dead. That’s all I’m willing to share.” 

“Alright.” Jonathan pretended to turn away at first, but then instead he leaned closer to Edward, voice so quiet even Ed could barely hear him. “I really think we should talk about the way you’ve been ravaging me with your eyes in the shower, though.” 

Ed sputtered. “Ravaging? They are wayward glances, at best!”

A knowing smile flashed on Jonathan’s lips. “So you admit you look, then.”

“I…” Edward removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He let out a deep sigh. “Listen, you can try to kill me, but I’m pretty certain I could best you easily unarmed. If you want to get transferred to a separate cell, let’s just throw a couple of punches each and the guards will split us up. But, please keep what I just told you to yourself. You owe me that, at least.”

Jonathan’s mouth hung slack, a marked difference from his usual controlled scowl. “Kill you? Why would I want to do something like that?”

“Because you’re from Georgia? I don’t know.” Ed shrugged.

The other man snorted, and crossed the cell to sit beside Edward on his bed, leaving a respectful two feet of space between them. He folded one of his mile-long legs over the other. Once again, Ed was fearful of his cellmate. His heart was racing. Jonathan stared at him. 

“Edward,” he said, voice gentler than Ed had ever heard it. “How do you think I noticed you were looking in the first place?”

Ed’s heart picked up its pace. “Huh?”

Jonathan reached over to graze Ed’s wrist with his finger. It was a fluttering touch, barely a touch at all. “I have been trying to flirt with you for weeks now,” he admitted, eyes focused intently on his own hand, hovering now above Ed’s arm. Ed couldn’t believe the words he was hearing.

“Flirting?” he asked incredulously. “What did you ever do that could be considered flirting in any capacity?” 

“I answered your riddles. Let you borrow my books. I let you have my dessert at meal times…” Jonathan’s voice was almost bashful now. It was alarming.

“I thought you just liked riddles and hated cornbread.”

Jon gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m Southern. I love cornbread.”

“Then, you don’t like riddles?”

“I like them enough. Most of the time.”

The tension in the air was still there, but it had morphed into something entirely new. The lights over their heads buzzed faintly. Somewhere, down the hall, an inmate was screaming curse words and what were probably puns. Ed was filing back through all his memories of the last few weeks, searching for the signs. Subtle as Jonathan had been, they were all there. Like any mystery, the clues were much easier to spot upon second reading. 

“You like me,” Ed said.

“More than most,” Jon answered. His tone was nonchalant, but the subtle rocking of his ankle told a different story.

“You’re attracted to me,” Ed reiterated slowly. “Sexually.”

“Most certainly.” 

Now this was quite the turn of events.

“You’re pretty decent yourself,” Ed ribbed, voice regaining its usual haughty confidence. It was a front. Inside, his mind was running at a thousand miles per hour. Jon was attracted to him. Wanted to sleep with him, no less. Ed felt a heat rising in his belly, and he squeezed his knees tightly together.

Jon’s hand, which all along had been held in the air between the two of them, now closed around Ed’s forearm. His skin wasn’t cold; it was clammy, sure. Not warm. But not cadaver cold, like Ed had suspected. He really was human after all. 

Jon was looking at his own feet. There was a nervousness in his eyes that Ed had never seen in him before. A tentative tremor in the way he held onto Ed’s bare limb. In this moment, Jonathan held no resemblance to the man known as the Scarecrow, the Terror of Gotham, as he called himself. The man who hacked people to pieces with a scythe, and could drive people to suicide with his words alone. This couldn’t possibly be that same man. Jonathan stroked Ed’s wrist bone with the pad of his thumb. Ed had nearly forgotten what it was like to be touched with kindness. The gesture flooded his body with warmth. Sent his heart shooting up into his throat. 

Their eyes met, and Edward rushed forward to lay a kiss on Jon’s lips. Jon returned it with disappointingly mild effort. He kept his mouth closed. His lips were chapped and they were rough against Ed’s own obsessively moisturized skin. 

When they broke the kiss, Edward hoped his frown wasn’t too obvious.

“I want to be clear,” Jon said, smoothing the front of his shirt just to be doing something. “Any interest I have in you is purely of a sexual, and intellectual, nature. I’m not looking for someone to ‘play house’ with, as they say.” 

Ed was taken aback. Had he seemed so desperate? Sure, most of the sex that happened inside Arkham didn’t usually involve tenderness, certainly not kissing. But that was so rude! And play house? Really?

“You think I want that with you?” Ed sneered, hoping to deflect some of the rejection he was feeling back onto Jon. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, unsure of why he was feeling rejected at all. Casual sex and intelligent conversation were all he’d been after as well. And the sex part wasn’t even something he’d thought possible until now. The very idea of seeking out a romantic relationship with Jonathan was laughable. 

Jon began to rise off the bed, making to return to his own side of the cell. “Well, if I’m not meeting up to your high personal standard, then I suppose I rescind my offer.”

Ed lifted his hand; to do what with he wasn’t certain. “Now, now, Jonathan,” he said, in the most suave tone he could manage in this confoundedly awkward situation. “I never said you didn’t meet up to my standards. Not for… physical companionship, at least. That flexible frame of yours is of particular interest to me, I admit.” 

Jonathan seemed happy enough with that statement. He sat back down on the bed, this time placing his hand on Edward’s upper thigh. The heat in his belly returned. My, wasn’t this exciting! Their second kiss was less stiff than the first. Jon even slipped him a little tongue. It left Ed dizzy, craving. 

But Jon was returning swiftly to his own bed at the sound of approaching footsteps. A pair of guards walked by, pausing to peer in through the glass at the two inmates. Ed glared at them over the top of the book he had hurriedly picked up and pretended to be reading. The guards continued on wordlessly.

Jonathan was staring at him again. Though his mouth was drawn into a hard line, his eyes held a light in them that Edward found enthralling. What was he thinking? He was dying to know. 

“You’re holding that book upside down, Edward,” he said, cracking a smile.

Damn it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (They gonna fuck)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!!!!!!


	6. Edward and Jonathan: Beginnings part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course, Edward had heard the rumors. He’d heard several versions of the same rumor, really, but they all said essentially the same thing: that a demon lived inside of Jonathan Crane. Ed didn’t want to believe it, but he kept remembering a night, years before, when he had happened upon a crime scene. Body parts. Blood. Entrails strung up like Christmas lights. It had made even Edward feel sick. Jonathan’s work involved casualties, sure. More often than not, in fact. And he wasn’t above killing to get something he needed or to protect his own skin. But this was not killing out of necessity; this was killing for the thrill of it. This was dismembering people and bathing in their blood for the sheer fun. Jonathan Crane didn’t do anything for fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for a homophobic slur and some violence

(Arkham Asylum, 5 years ago)

“I don’t cuddle,” Jonathan said as he stood up and began to walk away.

Edward was lying face down on the bed. His whole body was humming, skin hot and slick with sweat, awash in the afterglow. He turned his head on the pillow to look at Jon. “I don’t either.” Not with casual sexual partners, anyway. Truth be told, Ed enjoyed a good and proper snuggle as much as the next man. But he wasn’t going to tell Jon that. “I don’t know how anyone could find comfort wrapped up in those bony arms of yours, anyway.”

Jon didn’t answer. He was already on the other side of the room, fully dressed, standing there looking as if nothing had happened at all. The only tell was the sweat beading on his forehead, glistening in the dim light. 

“I was only joking,” Ed said. He hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings.

“I know,” Jon replied. “I was just pondering whether anyone could ever possibly find peace lying next to your squirming, thrashing figure in the night.”

“I have restless leg syndrome.”

“Restless pain in the ass syndrome is more like it,” Jon quipped. He tossed Ed his shirt and pants. “Cover your shame before the night watch come through.”

Ed flipped over onto his back, lifting his ass off the bed to pull his pants on and ignoring the shirt because he was still too warm, and then turned again to lie on his side, propped up on one elbow. He tried not to smile at Jon, but he couldn’t help it. 

Jon narrowed his eyes. “What?”

Ed bit his bottom lip. “Nothing.” 

“What, Edward?”

He grinned wider, and whispered, “We just had SEX.” 

Jon’s eyes bulged and he blushed heavily, hiding his face in his hands. 

Edward cackled. 

 

???

 

Jonathan was having a nightmare. 

It was a bad one. Edward could tell because Jonathan was shouting so loudly that it had roused Ed from his own sleep. There wasn’t much that could wake him. He watched Jon across the cell, muttering and crying indecipherably, body trembling, limbs kicking. He had thrown his blanket onto the floor. 

Ed never knew what to do when this happened. He’d been living with Jon in this cell for several months now, and the man’s nightmares were something he’d sort of become accustomed to. They were a little bit frightening to behold, sure, and Ed was always grumpy the next morning from having his sleep disrupted. But he’d gotten used to the sounds of Jonathan moaning and whining in his sleep. Eventually Ed had learned how to fall back asleep despite the noise. But sometimes it was too much.

And this particular dream seemed to be a very nasty one indeed, because Jonathan was weeping. “No, no, please, let me out,” he sobbed weakly into his mattress.

This was pitiful, and Edward couldn’t take it. He was at his feet and leaning over Jonathan in an instant. His hands found Jon’s hair, cold but soaked with sweat, and he brushed it out of his face. “Shhh, Jon, it’s OK,” he said softly. “You’re OK.”

“Please,” Jon gasped, pleading not with Edward but with some unseen fiend in the shadows of his mind. 

Ed got into the bed behind him, scooping the taller man into his arms. He whispered into Jon’s ear, shushing him. After a few minutes, Jon’s sobbing ceased. His shallow breathing slowed. 

“Ed?” 

“Shhhhh.” Ed was running a delicate hand up and down Jon’s hard chest.

“What are you doing in my bed?”

“You were having a terrible nightmare, it seemed. I was just trying to soothe you.”

Jon sighed, shivering just slightly. “Thanks, I suppose.”

Ed kissed his shoulder, not realizing until after he’d done it. 

“I thought I told you I don’t cuddle,” Jon said. 

“And I told you, I don’t either,” Ed replied, and despite his words he tightened his hold on the other man. Jon to his credit did not protest, and they lie there together for a very long time. 

In the morning, true to form, neither of them mentioned it.

 

???

 

Weeks passed. 

Looking back, Edward couldn’t pinpoint when exactly the intellectual and physical interest he had taken in Jonathan had evolved into genuine fondness. All he knew was that it had. And that, put simply, terrified him. He found himself watching Jonathan, not studying him or lusting after him as he had before, but merely enjoying him. Jon’s presence alone brought him joy. When they were separated during the day, being herded around from one therapy session to another, he found himself missing the strange man. Seeing him at the end of the day –sprawled out on his bed, book in hand, as he always was- made Ed’s chest swell with private glee. Edward found himself doing everything in his power to draw that small wry smile out of Jonathan, to make him laugh. It became his sole mission to fish Jon out of that melancholy that hung so heavily around him, even if it was only momentarily.

But Edward also knew that Jonathan did not feel the same way about him.

Even the most lewd of his ministrations were methodical. He made love- no, not made love, that would imply some sort of human connection- he fucked, with the purpose and precision of a surgeon. No touch was wasted, not even the most gentle and delicate of caresses, because everything Jonathan did was with a goal in mind, in this case being their mutual physical pleasure, and because there was no true affection behind his touching. Sometimes Ed thought that there might be, hidden in a lingering stare, in a too soft kiss, in the moan of his name in the dark. But when the deed was done, Jonathan would quickly move to his feet and go to his side of the cell, and any potential magic that might have been hanging in the air between them would come crashing down around Edward. And suddenly he would find himself, naked and sweating and heartbroken. And he would dress himself, silently hating Jonathan for giving him everything he had asked for and nothing that he hadn’t. 

 

\--

 

And then Jonathan had another nightmare. 

This one was worse than the last. Jonathan was not just crying, he was screaming. It woke Edward so suddenly he nearly screamed out himself. Jon was lying on his stomach, legs splayed out behind him, hands clawing at the mattress as he bellowed, “NO! STOP! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! PLEASE NO!”

Ed didn’t hesitate this time. He rushed to Jon’s side, laying his hands on his shoulders. “Hey, hey, Jon, it’s alright.”

“NO!” Jon grasped at the pillow below him. “DON’T!”

“Shhh,” Ed whispered. “I’m here, Jonathan. It’s me, Ed.”

“The crows,” Jon whimpered. “Not the crows.”

“They can’t hurt you, Jon. Nothing can hurt you while I’m here. I’ll protect you.” The words were spilling from him automatically. He had no idea what he was saying. But it seemed to be having an effect on Jonathan. He was beginning to relax. 

Jon muttered something that Ed couldn’t quite decipher. 

“Shhh, shhh, shhh.” He stroked Jon’s back through his shirt. Slow, careful, placating circles. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” Jon said, his voice so miniscule and distant that it brought a tear to Ed’s eye. 

Ed leaned over and kissed the back of his head. “I would never.” 

Jon trembled, but he didn’t cry out any more.

“Edward?” he asked after a long while, rousing Ed from his quiet contemplation.

“Hmm?”

“Could you stay here, for a while?”

“I’ll stay for as long as you’ll have me.”

 

\--

 

From then on, though neither of them spoke of it aloud, something between them had changed. Jonathan began to linger in Edward’s bed after their heated couplings, his hands occasionally finding Ed’s hair and filtering through it, rough lips nipping at his neck. Sometimes he would remain inside of Ed after completing; holding the man tightly to him with his arms for as long as he could before withering loose from him, as if breaking their connection on his own accord might kill him. Edward basked in those moments, savoring the lazy touches traded between them, kissing Jonathan’s mouth with quiet leisure. 

Some nights they would curl up in one of the beds together without even having sex. They would lie there beneath the thin covers, holding each other close. Sometimes they would make out, which of course was nice. But sometimes they just talked in hushed voices, getting to know each other, discussing their goals, their thoughts on various subjects, their favorite places, their past lovers, their plans for after Arkham… On occasion one of them would fall asleep like that, usually Edward, and it was the most peaceful sleep he had had in all his time in the Asylum. But he would always wake up alone. 

Edward was afraid. Afraid of the yet unnamed emotion that unfurled inside his chest every time Jonathan’s eyes locked with his. Afraid of the rejection that Jon would undoubtedly deliver if Ed ever indeed found the strength to give that emotion a name. Sure, Jonathan had become much more affectionate with him in recent weeks, but there must be another explanation. The tenderness he’d shown Edward was purely for his own benefit, a comfort in this hellhole of a place. Self-pacification using the closest warm body in sight. 

For all Edward knew, Jon would have done this with any receptive cellmate he’d gotten matched with. It was by pure happenstance that they’d ended up in each other’s company in the first place. Two ships, as it were, passing in the night. Jonathan couldn’t possibly love-

And there it was. A name. 

 

???

 

“When did you know?” Edward asked. It was well after lights out. Jonathan was wrapped around Ed, bony fingers filtering through his hair. They had a few hours to share a bed before the night guards made their next round. 

“Know?” Jonathan repeated.

“That you were attracted to men. “

“Oh. I was five years old, maybe six?”

“Wow, that early? I had to have been eleven or twelve when I first started noticing boys. I didn’t admit it to myself until I was well out of my teens, however.” Ed spoke quickly, eagerly. There I go, he thought, asking a personal question just so I can talk about myself. Why do I do that?

“In school one day,” Jonathan said, unfazed by Ed’s lack of conversational manners. “We were talking about weddings. I don’t recall the context. But, being the naïve child I was, I said that when I grew up I would prefer to marry a boy. It seemed so natural to me, to say it. I didn’t know it was a sin…”

Edward was silent, watching Jon’s face in the dark. His heart ached for the poor schoolboy that he never knew. He pictured a gangly young child, with a mess of black hair and glasses too big for his face, cheerfully and unknowingly bringing the wrath of a religious southern community upon himself. 

“The children all laughed. The teacher, though, she was horrified. She called my house…”

Ed held him a little tighter, knowing what Jon was going to say next. Wishing it wasn’t true. 

“Granny, she was outraged. I never heard her scream so loud. She locked me in…” 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Ed whispered. He couldn’t bear to hear the rest. He pulled Jon’s hand to his lips and kissed his palm softly. 

Jonathan closed his eyes. “I never brought it up again. But the other children never forgot, even as we grew up and went on to high school. It was just one more thing they could hurt me with. Even the adults in town mocked me. Scarecrow, Ichabod, faggot…”

Ed bristled at the word. He’d had it hurled at him too. By his father, by the kids at his own school, by other inmates here in Arkham… He squeezed his arms as tightly as he could around Jonathan’s waist, pressing humid kisses into the hollow of his throat. There were no words he could say to erase the lifetime of hurt that filled the other man. And even if there were, he didn’t want to insult him by making him feel weak. These midnight confessions were something they never spoke of in the daylight hours. Both men were far too proud to be victims. 

Jonathan was still for a long while. He seemed to be sleeping, but sometimes he pretended. It must have been a left over habit from his childhood. Edward had faked his fair share of slumber as a boy, especially when Dad was hitting the bottle. If only the old man could see him now; an out and proud bisexual supervillain, known far and wide for his incredible intellect. He was smart. He was so very, very smart. If his father saw him now, he’d drop dead all over again. 

Pushing the thought of his long-deceased father from his mind, Edward turned his attention back to the man lying presently in his arms. In the faint light he could see that Jonathan’s face was relaxed, the usual tension at the edges of his mouth lessened, bottom lip hanging slack. Ed brought his hand up to trace the lines on his friend’s face with his fingertips, lovingly committing every wrinkle and scar to memory. He never wanted to forget the way Jonathan looked right then. He had the most beautiful eyelashes, long and black like raven feathers. Edward pushed himself up to kiss them softly. Jon stirred a little, pressing his body closer to Edward’s, seeking warmth. The tiny movement made Ed’s heart sing. 

The darkness of the cell –and the fact that there was only a 50/50 chance that Jon was awake- fueled Ed’s bravery, and he whispered, barely audible into the rough flesh of Jon’s cheek. 

“Jonathan… I think I’m falling in love with you.” 

 

???

 

Of course, Edward had heard the rumors. He’d heard several versions of the same rumor, really, but they all said essentially the same thing: that a demon lived inside of Jonathan Crane. Ed didn’t want to believe it, but he kept remembering a night, years before, when he had happened upon a crime scene. Body parts. Blood. Entrails strung up like Christmas lights. It had made even Edward feel sick. Jonathan’s work involved casualties, sure. More often than not, in fact. And he wasn’t above killing to get something he needed or to protect his own skin. But this was not killing out of necessity; this was killing for the thrill of it. This was dismembering people and bathing in their blood for the sheer fun. Jonathan Crane didn’t do anything for fun.

Even his own henchmen swore that it was true. Sometimes, Jonathan wasn’t Jonathan. Sometimes he was Scarecrow. 

Ed had hoped, considering their recent courtship, that he wouldn’t have to meet the thing that occasionally stole Jon’s body. Especially not while he was locked up with him in this tiny prison cell.

 

Something woke Edward in the middle of the night. He was alone in his bed. He stretched, yawning dramatically, and rolled over to look across the cell. He expected to see Jon there, resting, maybe squinting in an attempt to read by the dim light that came in from the corridor. But the sight that greeted him there on the bed made his blood run cold. 

Jonathan was sitting up on his bed, legs slung over the side of the mattress. He had a pillowcase pulled down over his head, completely obscuring his face. 

“Jon?” Ed implored, unable to mask the tremble of his voice.

“Nope,” came a voice from under the pillowcase. It was Jonathan’s voice, but it wasn’t his at all. It was higher, less human, and laced with cruelty. “Nobody by that name here.”

“I see…” Edward tightened the blanket up around his neck compulsively. He tried to will the lump in his throat away. He knew the other man could still see through the thin white fabric of the pillowcase, even though Ed couldn’t see him.

Jonathan –Scarecrow- stretched his long legs out in front of him, heels tapping against the concrete floor. “What’s the matter, Eddie? Are you scared of me?”

Ed shook his head.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Scarecrow hissed. “I can smell your fear.” 

“What are you, a pitbull?” Even gripped with terror, Ed couldn’t resist being snarky. 

Scarecrow snapped to his feet, his impressive height more noticeable than ever, making Ed sink lower into the mattress. He held the edge of the blanket tightly in his hands, covering his mouth with it to quell his heavy breathing.

Scarecrow loomed over him now, and despite the pillowcase blanking out his face, Ed could tell they were making eye contact. A clammy hand brushed Ed’s forehead. He was frozen still. The hand carefully peeled the blanket down, uncovering Ed’s face and neck. A laugh came from inside the makeshift hood. A high-pitched, creaking laugh that no one would ever mistake for the laughter of Jonathan Crane. 

“Your fear is absolutely riveting,” the thing told Edward, sharp fingernails trailing threateningly across his trembling Adam’s apple. 

“What do you want?” Ed asked, swallowing hard. 

“I want you to leave us alone,” Scarecrow said. “Little Jonny doesn’t need you. And he certainly doesn’t belong to you.” Ed shivered, as Scarecrow’s fingers pushed through his hair in a mockery of the gentle affection that Jonathan so often showed him. 

“Is that all?” Ed challenged, impressing himself with his own bravado. 

Ed hissed through clenched teeth as the other man gripped a fistful of his hair and pulled hard, yanking him up into a sitting position, so that they were face to (pillowcase) face. 

“You are pathetic,” Scarecrow growled, the heat of his breath hitting Ed’s face even through the fabric. “Nothing but a broken, sad little boy. Your fears aren’t nearly as well-hidden as you think they are. You act proud and brave but really…” His free hand shoved itself up the back of Ed’s shirt, icy fingertips pressing against the scars there. “You’re haunted by the memory of whoever gave you these.”

Ed’s legs were shaking. His breath was ragged. He gaped helplessly at the masked figure in front of his face, unable in his terror to form words. 

“Who was it, I wonder?” Scarecrow said joyfully, tracing one of the thicker of Ed’s scars with the nail of his thumb. “A school bully? Your poor, frustrated mother? Hmmmm, no, these are cigar burns. It was your dear old dad, wasn’t it? “

Ed tried his hardest not to move even a single muscle in his face.

“Of course it was your father.” With his fingers still gripping at Ed’s scalp, Scarecrow pulled him closer in a sham of a hug. He whispered into Ed’s ear, lips popping with unseen spittle, “Did your daddy beat you because you wouldn’t cease your endless prattle? Or was it because he couldn’t stand your boasting? A boy genius! You must have been quite the insufferable little brat.” 

Each and every word was a blunt knife jamming into Edward’s pounding heart. How could Jonathan say those things to him? To wound him so deeply after Ed had offered him friendship, offered him his genuine affection? 

This isn’t Jonathan, the voice in his head reminded him. He’s sick, but this isn’t him.

“Sing a song of sixpence,” the Scarecrow began. “A bag full of rye, four and twenty naughty boys-“ His fingernails tore their way suddenly down the length of Ed’s back, no doubt drawing blood. Ed released a strangled cry. “Baked in a pie.”

He released his grasp on Ed’s hair, letting him drop back down onto the bed. “There’s another fear in you,” he drawled snidely. “You try to hide it, but it’s so painfully obvious. We can see it plain as day. You’re afraid that Jonny won’t ever love you.”

Ed’s eyes were burning, but he refused to cry, lest the creature harm him further.

“And he won’t.”

I know, Ed thought. I know he won’t.

“Luckily for you,” Scarecrow said. “Jonny won’t let me kill you. Not tonight, at least.” And with that he straightened, turned on his heel, and returned to his previous spot on Jon’s bed. He sat there all night, it seemed, watching Ed through the pillowcase, humming a children’s song that Edward might have recognized under happier circumstances. 

Ed didn’t sleep; only lie on his back, eyes on the ceiling, not daring to look over at the monster holding his cellmate’s body hostage. His shirt was sticking to the bloody scratches on his back, and it made him itch horribly, but he would have to wait to clean his wounds until morning. No doubt the action would provoke the Scarecrow into more taunts. He hoped that Jonathan’s filthy fingernails wouldn’t cause him an infection. 

Sometime in the early morning, he heard Jon’s body collapse onto the mattress, followed by soft snores. He still didn’t dare to look. 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: In the narration I call Scarecrow a demon but I think in this verse he's really just an alter that Jonathan created to protect him when he was being abused as a boy. He doesn't come out as much now bc Jonathan can take care of himself but it still happens if he's under intense distress. He's been in the Asylum for a couple months now and it's starting to really take a toll on him, I think. Edward doesn't know him well enough yet to be able to see that.  
> Also: IRL dissociative identity disorder does not = violent! That's your psa for the day.
> 
> This chapter was kind of long. Thank you for reading through it! 
> 
> <3 <3 <3


	7. Edward and the Bat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batman is so close that Ed can see his eyes through his mask now. They’re cold and dark and terrifying. Ed’s heart is pounding so heavily that he can hear it. He presses his back against the far wall of the storage container. The contact sends pain shooting through his damaged nerves.
> 
> There’s nowhere else to go. 
> 
> He’s cornered.

(Gotham Harbor. Present day)

Harley, Jonathan and Edward make a good team, it seems. They’ve made it to the storage deck and incapacitated any obstacles on the way with ease. Jon quickly locates the storage container he has been seeking and uses one of the keys Harley stole to open the padlock. The three of them enter and search for where the chemicals are being kept. 

“Right here,” Edward calls, pointing out a box marked Uneeda Medical Supply. “Is this the one?”

“Yes, that’s it!” Jonathan says, throwing an arm around Ed‘s shoulders in a brief appreciative hug. The brims of their hats knock against each other. Ed’s heart flutters a little bit. He sets his cane down so that he can wrap both arms around Jon’s skinny waist for just a moment. If Jon wasn’t wearing that mask he would kiss him. They part and Jon hurries to open up the package.

“Ah, there’s even more here than I thought!” he says triumphantly, filling his bag with care. “Feel free to take anything you can carry,” he adds over his shoulder. “This is all I’m after.”

Harley and Ed spring to action, quickly rifling through the palettes stacked along the wall. Harley tosses Styrofoam packing peanuts all around in her excitement. Ed doesn’t even complain when she gets some in his hair. He claps his hands together in delight, as he opens a box and discovers that it’s full of TNT.

“Ooh, it’s like Christmas come early!” he says, gathering bundles into his arms.

“Merry Christmas,” comes a low, sarcastic growl from behind the other end of the container.

As if it were choreographed, all three rogues’ heads snap simultaneously in the direction of the door. A shadowy figure is standing there, cape billowing behind him. Batman. 

Ed feels a chill deep in his spine. The TNT drops out of his arms and back into the box. 

Batman is rushing them. Harley, the least encumbered of the three, runs for the door. She ducks skillfully beneath Batman’s outstretched arm, and she’s gone. Jonathan takes the opportunity to slink behind him and bolt after her, burlap sack full of loot slung over his shoulder. 

That leaves Ed alone. All by himself with the Bat in this storage container. 

Suddenly it occurs to him what a small space this really is. He watches anxiously at the door, where his friends disappeared so easily. He’s not as fast or agile as either of them, even before his injuries. 

The looming figure that is Batman approaches. “Harley Quinn and the Scarecrow? That’s an interesting team up,” he says mockingly. 

He steps closer. 

Ed walks backwards, knocking over a stack of cardboard boxes with absolutely zero grace. His eyes dart to his cane, which is lying uselessly across the floor. Why did he set it down? Stupid! So stupid! Batman is so close that Ed can see his eyes through his mask now. They’re cold and dark and terrifying. Ed’s heart is pounding so heavily that he can hear it. He presses his back against the far wall of the storage container. The contact sends pain shooting through his damaged nerves.

There’s nowhere else to go. 

He’s cornered. 

“Nygma, I don’t want to hurt you,” Batman is saying. “Surrender now and I’ll take you back to Arkham. “

As he approaches, the edges of Edward’s vision begin to go dark. 

“No, no, stay away from me,” he says, sinking lower, ass almost touching the floor. “Don’t hurt me, please.”

He’s drenched in sweat. 

His breathing is too fast. 

Too fast.

Batman lowers his arms to his sides. He’s looking at Ed with a peculiar expression. “Hey,” he says, voice dropping its usual gravel. “Breathe, Ed. It’s OK.”

“Don’t touch me!” Ed practically shrieks.

“I’m not.”

Ed puts his shaking hands on top of his head, smoothing his own hair back anxiously. He can’t breathe. He can’t do anything. He’s trembling so hard that the boxes behind him rustle at an alarming volume.

“Ed…” Batman takes another step closer.

THUD!

And suddenly he’s face down on the ground, a syringe sticking out of his neck.

Two potato sack clad feet step over him, and a gloved hand reaches down to help Edward stand. 

“Jonathan,” Edward says, anxiety turning rapidly into anger. “What the hell did you do to me? Why did you dose me like that?”

Jon pulls his burlap mask up over his head, so he can look Ed in the eye. “I did no such thing.”

“Then how do you explain what just happened?”

“It looked like a panic attack to me,” Harley says, returning to their sides.

Ed wipes the cool sweat from his brow with his pocket square. Great. That’s just great. 

Jon touches his shoulder in what must be intended as a comforting gesture, but Ed shakes him off. Jon opens his mouth to say something, then apparently thinks better of it. 

“What did you hit Batty Boy with?” Harley asks, inspecting the needle hanging loosely now from the edge of Batman’s leather cowl.

“A heavy tranquilizer. But we should hurry along; in my experience the Bat has a much higher tolerance than most men. He could wake up any minute.”

Ed picks his cane up from the floor, dusting it off with his gloved fingers. Counting backwards from ninety-nine in his head, he regulates his breathing, which in turn slows his heart rate back to something approaching normal. His hands are still jittery, but he knows that will probably last for quite a while. Since when is he afraid of Batman? Sure, everyone is a little scared of Batman, but not like this. It’s never been like this. After all these years, why now?

A dull ache in his lower back informs him suddenly of just why. 

From the look Jonathan is giving him, he knows exactly why as well. 

Edward doesn’t even want the explosives anymore. He just wants to go home and forget that this ever happened. But of course, he knows that that is not likely to happen any time soon. 

 

???

 

(Harley and Edward's apartment)

 

“I do not want to talk about this.”

Edward is rummaging through the top drawer of his bureau, selecting bed clothes to change out of his suit into. His poor suit, it’s so filthy. It’ll need to be sent to the dry cleaner first thing tomorrow. 

Jonathan stands in the doorway, his back bent forward slightly so he doesn’t bump his head on the jam. His hands are on his hips. He’s in a white undershirt, and his feet are bare, but he’s still wearing those raggedy burlap pants. “We need to discuss this, Ed. Sooner better than later.”

Pretending not to have heard, Edward focuses on removing his sullied suit in favor of a pair of silk pajamas. They are a color that multiple people have called ‘obnoxiously green.’ Sadly, not everyone possesses Ed’s good taste. “Are you spending the night?” he asks, desperate for a change in subject, and also hoping that the answer is yes. A lukewarm body in his bed is just what he needs to shake the anxiety still rattling around in his chest.

“I don’t want to impose,” Jon says, habitually averting his eyes as Ed changes.

“You can look, Jon,” Ed says with a chuckle. “It’s nothing you haven’t studied at length before.” Last night, for instance. “You wouldn’t be imposing,” he adds, sensing that it’s something Jon needs to hear said plainly.

Jon fiddles with the thin rope that holds up his pants. “I didn’t bring pajamas.”

“Not planning on sleeping in the nude again?” Ed smirks as Jon’s eyes dart to his, cheeks coloring faintly. If only the citizens of Gotham knew just how easy it is to embarrass the God of Fear. But Edward is quite happy to be the solitary source of that bashfulness. 

Without giving Jonathan a chance to answer, Edward walks over to him and delivers an ebullient kiss upon his mouth. Surprised for just a few seconds, the older man responds with matching fervor. Carefully so as not to trip, Edward walks backwards, leading Jonathan. Their kiss remains unbroken until after they’ve fallen onto the bed in a tangle of long legs and grasping arms, jagged breaths mingling on the heat of their faces. Jonathan is straddling him, fingers working to unbutton the silk top that Ed has only been wearing for a minute or two. Edward moans softly as Jonathan’s lips move down his chest, adept tongue sweeping across one nipple, spreading goosebumps across his freckled skin. 

He cups Jon’s ridiculously narrow ass in both hands, palming at the rough burlap, pulling him down. Closer. Closer. He wants to bring Jon so impossibly close. He wants him. Wants to have all of his lust and all of his attention and all of his reverence, until he’s drowning in it. Until he has to swim to the surface because he’ll die if he doesn’t. 

Jonathan is certainly doing his best to drown him. He’s stroking Edward’s chest, and kissing his throat, and lapping at his mouth like he’s been starving for this. And then he pulls back, sitting up, and his torso is so incredibly long and he’s so impossibly thin and he’s towering over Edward’s body like an ancient twisted tree, and he’s beautiful. Not beautiful like a sunset or a flower or a painting of a sail boat, but beautiful like a predatory animal, muzzle dripping with a fresh kill, beautiful like rusted cemetery gates, beautiful like a mushroom cloud that rises blindingly and leaves destruction and death and cancer for miles in every direction. And when Jonathan gazes down at Edward his eyes are alight. The fire inside of them seems every bit as dangerous as a physical flame. And Edward is longing to burn beneath them, to be charred to ash and blown away on the wind. Because the only other option would be not to lie here, swallowed up in that adoring stare. 

And that stare is addictive. Maybe it’s the intensity of those grey eyes, the intelligence that glitters behind them, taking in everything and cataloguing, connecting, recalibrating his actions in order to get the most satisfying reaction he can out of Edward. Making him gasp, making him moan, making him plead and sweat and fall limp in Jonathan’s arms. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Jonathan doesn’t look at anyone else this way. That he probably never has, and never will. This side of Jonathan is Edward’s and Edward’s alone. Even after all these years apart.

The best part, Edward thinks slyly, is that Jonathan can’t make him talk about Batman while they’re screwing. 

 

\--

 

In the morning Ed’s back is stiff with pain, and he tries his best not to show it. But Jonathan notices. He notices right away, when Ed rolls over to sit up but recoils with clenched teeth back onto his stomach instead. Jonathan makes him some tea and brings him aspirin, and then he uses those big gnarled hands to massage Ed’s aching spine. It's so unlike Jonathan to be attentive like this. 

“Who is this gentle man disguising himself as Jonathan Crane?” Edward can’t help but ask. “I quite like him.” 

Jon’s hands cease their kneading. He’s quiet. Oh no, I’ve ruined the moment, Ed thinks. He tries to think of something to say, a way to backtrack. But Jon kisses his cheek then, a small careful peck, and says, “I don’t know… but he likes you too.”

Edward smiles stupidly into the pillow, as Jonathan continues to rub his back.

“So,” Jonathan says, and it’s clear by his doctoral tone that the moment is in fact destined to be ruined. “Shall we talk about last night?”

“You mean the part when you got an unseemly bodily fluid in my hair?” Ed asks, stalling mostly but also enjoying the strangled sound that Jon makes in response. He can’t see his face but he knows he’s blushing.

“No,” Jonathan growls, pressing his knuckles a bit too firmly between Ed’s shoulders. “Honestly, Edward. You are disgusting.”

“Hey, you’re the one that-“

“I am talking about what happened at the harbor,” Jon interrupts, pulling his hands away. “You can’t keep avoiding this, Edward.”

Ed rolls over onto his back to look up at Jonathan. “Do not tell me what I cannot do,” he says. There isn’t a thread of humor in his tone now.

Jon chooses to ignore the gentle threat. “That was an intense fear response you exhibited when Batman came near you. If I’m being honest, had you been anyone else I would have greatly enjoyed the display.”

“Lovely,” Ed scoffs.

“I believe what you were experiencing,” Jonathan continues. “Was a panic attack brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder.” 

Oh, not this shit.

Ed covers his face with his hands, digging his palms into his eye sockets. “I would appreciate it if you did not try to diagnose me, Jon. It’s incredibly invasive, not to mention annoying.” 

“Harleen agrees with me,” Jonathan tells him. 

Ed removes his hands from his eyes, glaring. “When did you talk to Harley about this?”

“This morning, while you were sleeping.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ed groans, sitting up. “Don’t diagnose me, and don’t consult my friends about diagnosing me. That’s even more annoying.”

“I can help you,” Jonathan says quickly.

Edward laughs sarcastically. He gets up from the bed and pulls on a shirt. “You’re not my doctor,” he says. “You’re not even A doctor, not anymore. And even if you were, you couldn’t help me. Because I don’t need help. I’m fine.”

“Edward-“

“Fuck off, Jon.”

“Where are you going?” Jonathan asks, seemingly unfazed by the insult, eyes following Ed as he crosses the room to the door. 

“I’m going to give Dr. Quinzel a piece of my mind,” he answers, and slams the door behind him. 

 

“Mornin’, Eddie!” Harley greets him from the kitchen table. “How’s your back? Dr. Crane said it was hurtin’ you earlier.”

“You and the good doctor like to talk about me quite a bit, it seems,” he says, taking the seat across from her.

She frowns knowingly. Her tone is gentle, dangerously close to condescending. “Did he talk to you about what happened with Batsy?”

Edward snarls. “He tried.”

“He told me to fuck off,” Jonathan says casually, from the living room. He’s fully dressed, boots and coat included. “So that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Aww.” Harley pouts. “Don’t fight, you two.”

“I don’t intend to, and that’s exactly why I’m leaving,” Jonathan says. Halfway out the door, he turns his eyes on Ed. “Edward, call me later. If you care to.” 

“Good BYE, Doctor Crane!” Ed says, loudly and with much derision. 

Jonathan exits without another word.

Harley is glaring at Edward. “Why are you so mean to him?” 

“Me? Mean to him? You know who he is, right?” He runs his hands through his hair. There’s an angry tremor in his fingers. “He doesn’t have normal human feelings, Harley. He’ll be just fine.”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s right, you know,” she says, and her voice is even softer than before. “You’re traumatized. It’s ok, it happens to the best of us.”

Ed huffs. He fidgets with his shaking fingers. Trauma is something he’s intimately familiar with. Trauma has been a driving force in his life. Trauma is what brought him and Jonathan together in the first place. Of course he recognizes it. But to be analyzed like that, his precious brain laid out and dissected, diagnosed… He shudders at the thought. 

He is enigmatic, his mind a labyrinth, his thoughts incomprehensible to the average human being… Jonathan has absolutely no right to impede on that delusion. 

“He’s right,” Harley says again.

“I know,” Edward finally answers. 

Harley’s hand is on top of his head, smoothing back his hair. She smiles warmly at him. “Want some cocoa?” 

He nods, hugging his arms around himself. “Yes," he says. "That would be lovely."

 

???

 

“We got mail,” Harley says, sitting on the arm of the couch beside Edward.

“We?” he asks. Curious, he sets his lap top down on the coffee table.

“It’s addressed to both of us. ‘Mr. Edward Nygma and Ms. Harleen Quinzel.’”

He sighs a little. Just how many people know he lives here? Harley clearly doesn’t understand the intended function of a secret hide out.

She turns the gold foil envelope over in her hand. It’s been sealed with red wax. “How upscale,” she remarks, tearing into it with little care.

Ed would have used a letter opener, but that’s just him…

Harley reads aloud, “You are invited to attend the Iceberg Lounge’s tenth annual Christmas Ball.” 

“Oh,” Ed says, his attention lost. He reaches for his lap top. 

“You don’t wanna go?” she asks, pouting a little. “I think it might be fun.”

“Those parties are usually dreadfully boring,” he says. “And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not exactly on good terms with the host.”

“He invited you!” 

Ed shrugs. “It must have been a mistake.”

She’s rereading the invitation. “It was addressed to me and you, though, so it couldn’t have been. This was intentional.” She smiles suddenly. “Aww, he wants to say sorry, I bet.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“He might! Come on, Eddie. Let’s go!” She slides off the arm of the couch and slumps heavily onto his lap. He snatches his lap top just in time before it falls to the floor. 

“Get off me, Harley!” he grunts. She’s so tiny, how is she this heavy?

She bounces her ass into his thighs hard, pushing a wince out of him. “Only if you agree to go to the party!” she sings.

“No.”

She climbs up higher, sitting on his shoulders. 

“What the hell? What are you doing?”

“Take me to the party, please? Please, please, please!” Her thighs are crushing the sides of his head. 

He sighs heavily. “Fine, we’ll go. Get off now, Harley, you’re hurting me.”

“Yay!” she cheers, flopping off of him and toppling over the back of the couch to the floor.

 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to present day for a little bit. I know you guys wanted to know what happened after Ed's first encounter with Scarecrow but that's just too bad. (I'm kidding, we'll get there in due time.) 
> 
>  
> 
> (Also, did I make a Return of the Living Dead reference in a Batman fic? Maaaaybe...)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!!!


	8. Edward and Oswald

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quite likely, Oswald has invited Ed to tonight’s function with the intent of apologizing. Ed doesn’t feel much like forgiving, but unfortunately he’s going to have to. Without Oswald on his side, all of his resources have seemed to run dry. He needs Oswald’s contacts, especially if he wants to get his revenge on the Bat. 
> 
> Edward straightens his tie in the bathroom mirror. He checks his teeth. Tries not to focus on the crows’ feet forming at the corners of his eyes. At the lines around his mouth. His cell phone buzzes on the counter top.
> 
> ‘Don’t forget to take your meds -Jonathan'
> 
> Jon knows him so eerily well.

Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot. The deformed little monster of a man. Feared and respected throughout the city of Gotham. He was a killer. He was a thief. He was a master of manipulation. But if you asked him, he was first and foremost a businessman.

His and Edward’s relationship began when they were much younger men. It had been tumultuous to say the least. They were best friends. They were enemies. They were enemies turned reluctant allies turned friends turned lovers. They got together and broke up and got together again. Every hired thug in Gotham had had to listen at some point to one or the other tirade on about his apparent distaste for the other. 

Their relationship, whether lovers or foes, was one of passion. Always. 

When things were good, they were wonderfully good. Oswald spoiled Ed rotten, showering him with gifts and attention. He regarded the Riddler as a treasured prize. A precious green jewel that he had all to himself. And Ed took care of Oswald, organized his schedule, kept track of his medications and his doctor’s appointments, cooked and cleaned for him (despite Oswald’s protests. He had hired help to do those things, after all. But Edward insisted.) Edward thought Oswald was a beautiful man, no matter what anyone else said. He loved his beak-like nose, his pointed teeth, his unique hands. At night, Ed would press heavy, warm kisses over every inch of Oswald’s body. The sparkle in Oswald’s eyes as they moved together was enough to make Ed want to cry. He lived for the times when they were in love.

But when things were bad, and they always got bad, it was terrible. They were both very stubborn men. Neither was good at apologies or even admitting they were wrong. Their large egos meant they clashed like titans. Edward was an impulsive man at times (many times) and he got himself into trouble on the regular. He was demanding, petulant even. Oswald could be selfish as well, and he had a jealousy problem. Regular patrons at his Lounge knew to avert their eyes when the Riddler walked through, lest they incur the wrath of the Penguin. He was monogamous to a fault, keeping with the bird of his namesake. When they were broken up, Ed would date other people, sometimes for years (a certain Dr. Crane comes to mind.) But Oswald never took another lover. He surrounded himself with beautiful women whenever he was in public, but it was all a show of his status. Ed suspected it was partially intended to make him jealous too.

They tried to stay on friendly terms during these times apart, and that was usually feasible. On the occasion that they were on bad terms, however, the people of Gotham knew to lock their doors. Spats between the two rogues often came with casualties. 

\--

 

(Present day, Ed and Harley’s apartment)

 

Tonight is going to go horribly. Edward just knows it. The last time he saw his ex-lover, they were hollering at each other over a metal table in Arkham. It doesn’t matter if Oswald didn’t intend to get him caught- to get him gravely wounded- all that matters is that it happened. All that matters is that the night which Edward had planned to spend granting his cherished Penguin a gift unlike any he’d ever given, had instead been spent under general anesthesia with scalpels in his back. His suit had been cut to ribbons, but the small velvet box had been saved. Edward was shocked to find it tucked inside of one of his shoes when he and Harley were reclaiming their belongings on the way out of the asylum. Somehow the thought had not occurred to the paramedics or any of the Arkham staff that the diamond had been stolen.

Or perhaps someone had noticed, but they had pitied him. 

The box is hidden away in his drawer at home. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

Quite likely, Oswald has invited Ed to tonight’s function with the intent of apologizing. Ed doesn’t feel much like forgiving, but unfortunately he’s going to have to. Without Oswald on his side, all of his resources have seemed to run dry. He needs Oswald’s contacts, especially if he wants to get his revenge on the Bat. 

Edward straightens his tie in the bathroom mirror. He checks his teeth. Tries not to focus on the crows’ feet forming at the corners of his eyes. At the lines around his mouth. His cell phone buzzes on the counter top.

‘Don’t forget to take your meds’  
-Jonathan

Jon knows him so eerily well. Edward rolls his eyes, though there’s no one around to see it, and fetches two pill bottles from the medicine cabinet. He fills one of the animal-print paper cups that Harley keeps there with water. He types on his phone while he swallows his pills.

‘I already did. I’m not a child, Jon.’  
-?

It’s not technically a lie. They were down his throat before he hit send.

Edward fusses over his tie some more, and the phone buzzes again. 

‘Right’  
-Jonathan

Edward exhales hard through his nostrils. How dare he. Then he smirks, typing quickly. 

‘Are you sure you don’t want to accompany me to the ball?’  
-?

Jonathan will hate that, he thinks, chuckling to himself. He can see those tightly pursed lips clearly in his mind. The narrowed blue-grey eyes. Though, a part of him wishes that Jon really would attend the Christmas party with him. Not just to vex Oswald –although the thought alone is delicious- but because Ed misses him. He hasn’t seen Jonathan at all since their argument a week ago. Edward called him that same evening, after a lot of insistence from Harley, and the two had made up. Ed didn’t say sorry, exactly, and neither did Jon, but that was their way. The sentiment was in there somewhere.

Jonathan has been working at his lab all week, though to Edward’s pleasant surprise he’s made time to talk on the phone nearly every day. Ed’s attempts at phone sex have not been met with much enthusiasm, however. He’s fairly certain Jonathan had a “test subject” in the room during one try. What variety of fear toxin induced hallucinations that man endured was anyone’s guess. 

Another text.

‘No.’  
-Jonathan

Oh he’s so mad, Ed thinks, grinning down at the message. He puts on his hat and strolls out of the bathroom to the living room, where Pamela and Harley wait with crossed arms and tapping toes.

“Are you ready yet?” Pamela asks unceremoniously, slinging her purse over her shoulder.

“You’re worse than a girl, Eddie,” Harley teases. She’s traded her pigtails for a braided up-do, with dozens of sparkling barrettes all throughout. Her dress is beautiful, brilliant scarlet with a plunging neckline. 

Ed goes to her and grabs her by the hand, his other arm around her waist, and gently dips her like a dancer. She giggles wildly. “Harley you look ravishing,” he tells her. Her blushed cheeks are almost worth the pain that shoots through his lower back.

Pamela’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t say anything. 

“And Pam,” he adds, releasing Harley. “Darling, your leaves are looking splendid.” 

She scoffs. “We’re going to be late.”

“Then let’s get a move on!” Harley links arms with her –girlfriend? Ed thinks? She hasn’t said- and the three of them exit the apartment. 

Perhaps this night won’t be half bad. 

 

\--

 

The Lounge is breathtaking. It’s always impressive, but when Oswald decorates it for the winter holidays it looks fantastical. There are so many lights, blue and gold, strung up on every available railing and sill. Enormous crystal icicles hang from the ceiling, and there is a live pine tree, decorated with all manner of tinsel and baubles, in every corner. It looks like an actual winter wonderland. 

There is a live band on the stage, playing some upbeat jazz. 

Edward sits at the bar, drinking a series of glasses of wine. He’s by himself. As soon as they had stepped inside, Harley had excitedly taken Pamela’s hand and dragged her off. Presumably to the dance floor. Ed isn’t sure if he even can dance anymore, with his back. He recalls that conversation he’d had with the doctor in the infirmary. “Will I ever dance again?” he had asked. It was a joke then, but now he really wonders. 

He looks around to see who he can recognize. Harvey Dent is stretched out at a table, talking expressively while the lackeys around him listen, nodding their heads in dramatic agreement whenever he pauses. His two-tone suit is green and white. 

Ed looks down at his own outfit. His green suit is far superior to Harvey’s, of course. Some would say that this suit looks exactly like his usual one, but they would be saying so erroneously. The question marks on the lapel are dotted with tiny snowflakes. He huffs, irritated. Not one person has remarked on them yet. In fact, he realizes with dismay, no one has so much as said hello to him.

A few tables away, sits Selina Kyle. She looks stunning; her black hair slicked back, her brown skin contrasting beautifully with the shimmering silver of her cocktail dress. She’s laughing coolly as a clueless man tries to chat her up. He likely won’t realize that he’s been robbed of his cuff links until he’s back in his room a few hours from now. Ed grimaces at the thought of his former friend. He hates Selina now. It was her paramour who broke his spine, after all. She hasn’t even apologized on Batman’s behalf yet. Edward considers going to stand near her table and enthusiastically clutching his back in pain, so she’ll see just how serious it is. Perhaps he’ll pretend he’s trying to dance and then drop to the floor at her feet. She’ll have to pay attention to him then.

Maybe he’ll have a little more wine, first. 

“Edward.”

Ed spins around on his barstool, recognizing the voice.

Oswald looks magnificent. He has forgone his usual black and white tuxedo for a deep crimson one. Crushed velvet, it looks like, but knowing Oswald it’s probably something more expensive than that. His top hat is rimmed with diamonds, and he’s exchanged his signature umbrella for an emerald and diamond-encrusted cane. 

Oh, I am definitely going to steal that cane, Ed thinks. 

“Don’t you look festive,” he remarks flatly.

“You’re quite dapper yourself,” Oswald says, indicating to Ed’s suit, his blue eyes twinkling beneath the brim of his hat. He’s smiling, and if the champagne glass in his hand is any indication, Ed can guess why. 

Ed’s eyes wander around the Lounge again. Everything is so sparkly. He wants to tell Oswald how much he loves it, but doesn’t. “Enjoying the party?” he asks.

“Well of course. It is my party, after all.” 

Ed is quiet.

Jazz music. Dozens of individual conversations. The clinking of ice on glass.

“The birds are doing well,” Oswald says.” Maybe you can go downstairs and visit them later.”

“Mmm, maybe.” He’s not going to. Seeing Oswald’s penguins might soften him up and he doesn’t want to be soft in front of him.

Ed sips at his drink distractedly. This is painfully awkward, and he has little patience for being the subject of awkwardness. He looks around to see where Harley and Ivy have gone, but he can’t find them in the crowd.

Oswald hasn’t seemed to notice. “Recognize the band? It’s the same band that I hired to play at your birthday party last year.”

“Honestly, Os, I hadn’t noticed.” 

“Oh.” 

Good, Ed thinks, feel bad. Feel terrible. You deserve it. 

Oswald is staring down into his champagne. He runs his tongue along the edge of his pointed teeth, as he often does when he’s thinking deeply. “So,” he says at long last. “The doctor didn’t want to come along tonight?”

“What?”

“I know you’ve been seeing that Jonathan Crane again.” Oswald’s face is very serious now. “And you know I don’t like him one bit.”

Ed huffs. “Well you don’t have to like him.”

“Ha!” Oswald barks a laugh into his drink. 

“What’s so funny, Oswald?” 

“It’s hilarious. You can have any man or woman in Gotham –or so you say- and yet the first thing you do is go running to your ex.” 

“He approached me,” Ed says. He doesn’t know why he’s taking the bait, but he can’t help it. It probably has to do with the five glasses of wine he’s had. Maybe. “He asked me out, because I’m such a catch.”

Oswald visibly rolls his eyes. “Oh, save it, Ed.”

Ed downs the rest of the wine in his glass and sets it down on the bar. He’s drunk. Oswald might be drunker. This conversation needs to end soon, before…

Oswald sways on his cane, stubby fingers pointing at Ed harshly. “You’re going to get fed up with him, Eddie. You know it’s true. Right now you’re all caught up in his moody loner shtick. You’re caught up in the way he fucks you-“Ed’s eye twitches at the vulgarity. Oswald continues, “But you’re going to get bored with it eventually. Once he stops paying attention to you. Once his precious research takes up all his time and he has none left for you… Or worse, his other personality comes out and plain kills you.” 

Ed’s cheeks are glowing hot. He balls his gloved hands into fists at his sides, and he growls his words. “Jon has his faults, but at least he’s never sold me out, leading to me having my back broken, and sent to recover in a god damn asylum. For months!” 

Oswald’s expression goes through a rapid series of changes. Anger to insult to what might be sorrow. Ed reminds himself that he doesn’t care. “I told you, Eddie, I didn’t know. I’ve apologized. I wish you’d just forgive me.”

“Have you? I don’t recall ever hearing a ‘sorry’ from you.” 

“I’m sorry,” Oswald says instantly, as if on command.

Ed holds up a hand. “Too little, too late, I’m afraid.” He lowers himself off the bar stool and makes to step away.

Oswald’s voice is low, hoarse. “I loved you, Eddie… I still love you.” 

“How dare you say that to me now!” Ed snaps, turning back around. His pointed index finger is almost touching the end of Oswald’s nose. “You betrayed me, and I’m allowed to hate you for it.” 

Oswald leans heavily on his cane. His eyes are searching Ed’s. “You don’t hate me,” he says. Who he’s trying to convince is uncertain.

“I fucking despise you, Oswald.”

“No,” Oswald says. “I don’t believe that.”

“I was going to ask you to marry me.” The words escape from Edward’s mouth before he can stop them. 

Shit.

Oswald’s eyes glisten. With tears? “What did you just say?”

“You heard me. I was going to do it that night, after I got back. I had an entire romantic evening planned for us. Christ, why do you think I was robbing a jewelry store?” The confession keeps spilling out. Ed has no control over his own tongue right now.

“You… Why didn’t you tell me before?” 

“You think I still wanted to marry you after what you did?”

“It was a mistake! I didn’t know!” Oswald is nearly screaming now. Every head in the place is zeroed in on them. Every pair of ears is straining to discern their words over the music.

“But not because I didn’t tell you. Because you didn’t care enough to know.” 

The last rational part of Ed makes the decision to walk away now. He turns swiftly in the direction of the exit. Nausea trickling up the back of his throat. 

“I would have said ‘Yes,’” Oswald squeaks after him. The tears are beginning to spill from his eyes onto his fat pink cheeks. It’s an embarrassing display from a self-proclaimed king. It will surely be in the papers tomorrow.

“I know you would have,” Ed answers, in the most measured tone he can muster.

His stomach is churning painfully. The blood is pounding in his ears. He feels hundreds of eyes on the back of his head as he shoves his way ungracefully through the large double doors. Once he’s outside, and the frigid air is stabbing at his face, Edward allows his own tears to fall. He drops his cane and falls to his knees in the snow, sobs racking his body.

He vomits.

Harley and Pamela are at his side, suddenly. One of them is handing him a handkerchief, and he takes it, not looking at who it is. His face is covered in tears and snot and puke. His pants are soaked through with snow. His skin is stinging with cold. The damaged vertebras in his back are screaming. He wipes his face clean, and crumples the handkerchief and stuffs it in his coat pocket. He’s sure they don’t want it back. 

He finally looks at Harley. “Can we go home, please? I… I’d like to go home.” Ugh. He sounds like a child. When did this happen to him? When did he become an emotional weakling? He used to be so strong.

Harley’s arms are around him, helping him to his feet. “Of course, Eddie. Let’s go.”

Pamela takes his other arm, smiling at him softly. “We’ve got you,” she tells him. She’s carrying his cane in her free hand.

“Careful with that,” he mumbles. “That one shoots poison darts.”

“I’m probably immune,” she says. “But thanks for the warning.”

He lets the two of them guide him to the car, and he settles in the back seat. 

“If you have to lie down, lie on your side,” Pamela tells him from the driver’s seat. Maybe she’s not such a monster after all. 

“Roger,” he breathes. He fumbles with the seatbelt for a moment before giving up on it. His throat is burning. His mouth tastes awful. All he wants is water and his own warm bed and… Jonathan. He wants Jonathan. “Where is my phone?” he asks, patting his pockets.

Harley leans over the back of the passenger seat. “I’ve got it right here.” She hands it to him.

It takes his drunken and frozen fingers forever to type a message and hit send.

 

‘I needto see you jon.come ov er onight. Pls’  
-?

“Who wants KFC?” Harley asks loudly.

Ed groans, feeling like he’s going to vomit again. 

 

\--

 

When Jonathan arrives at the apartment, Edward is sitting on the bathroom floor beside the toilet. His knees are pulled up under his chin, and his face is buried in his hands.

“He’s drunk off his ass,” Pamela says, appearing in the door way beside Jonathan.

Harley is there too. “He keeps asking for you,” she tells Jon.

“I’m not sure how much help I can really be in this situation.” 

Hearing the object of his affections’ voice, Ed peers out from behind his fingers. His voice is strained. “Jon, you’re here.” He smiles, but it comes out as more of a grimace. “I’m… sick.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Jon says evenly.

Edward reaches his arms out in front of him. “Jonathan, Jon, my sexy, spooky Jon,” he sings. “Come here.”

Awkwardly, Jonathan lowers himself into a crouch before Ed. He doesn’t touch him. “I’m here.” There is a shortness in his tone. 

“You’re angry,” Ed says, frowning.

“I’m not angry, I’m annoyed. I am annoyed that you made me interrupt some very important work just to come witness your drunken nonsense.”

Ed clutches his arms around his own bent legs again, follows the pattern of the tile floor with his eyes. Counting the white spaces between the blue. “You’re always annoyed with me…”

“Not always,” Jon says. “Just most of the time.”

Edward is quiet. His shaky index finger draws shapes against the flushed skin of his own forearm. A curve and a dot. A curve and a dot. Question marks. They each flash white for a second before disappearing.

Jon stands.

“Don’t leave,” Ed says suddenly, looking up at him with entreating eyes.

“I’m not,” Jon tells him. “But my old knees can’t take crouching like this anymore.”

Ed asks, “Do you want to go to the other room?” His voice is small. Childish, again. It’s disgusting. He’s disgusting. He hates himself when he’s like this.

Jonathan nods, offering his hand to help Ed rise to his feet. “You’re not going to vomit anymore, are you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Jonathan’s arm is around his waist now, and they move to the couch in the living room. They sit. Ed leans his pounding head against Jon’s shoulder. He briefly wonders where Harley and Pam have gone, but realizes they’ve probably gone to bed. He has no idea what time it is, but it feels late. The room is slowly spinning around them. 

“I don’t mean to be annoying,” he says quietly. 

Jon doesn’t answer. He’s lost in his own thoughts already. But his cool hand is holding onto Ed’s in his lap, and his thumb is smoothing over the scars there, and this small act of tenderness makes Ed want to cry all over again.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“You’re drunk,” Jon counters, plainly.

“The two are not mutually exclusive.”

Again, Jon doesn’t answer. 

Edward presses closer to his side, kisses the sleeve of his shirt. “Please stay the night. I can’t bear to be alone right now.” He loathes the sound of his own begging. Jonathan must loathe it too.

Jon rests his stubbled cheek against Ed’s forehead. His lips form the specter of a kiss there. “Fine,” he says. “Fine.” 

???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~such angst~
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3  
> xoxo


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